Desiderata
by Tawnya Kisaragi
Summary: After The Game was won, they all got a resolution. It wasn't necessarily a happy ending, nor even close to what they thought they wanted. But what they received was most definitely what they needed in order to make their new world home. Post-game, everyone lives scenario, Solkat, and could be considered part of the "Our Lives After" continuum.
1. Chapter 1

AA: what are you doing tonight?

TA: wonderiing why iit ii2 that ii can flawle22ly compile over two thou2and liine2 of code yet am never 2mart enough two 2mell the miilk two 2ee iif iit went ranciid iin the meantiime.

AA: :) so you are out attempting to conquer the ever dreaded land of sales and foodstuff

TA: more liike the land of 2creamiing kiid2 and biitchy old ladiie2 but yes ii am out and iinteractiing wiith the world.  
TA: arent you 2o proud of me?

AA: i have always been proud of you  
AA: i would be prouder still if that foodstuff included more than instant noodles and cereal

Sollux sighed as he sipped his coffee. He supposed he deserved that particular prod. Yes, he was out and about interacting with the world, but only because he had to and Aradia knew it. She also knew that his pantry included a _lot_ more food than either instant noodles or cereal, too. It was just that the last time she'd come to visit him, it had been a while since he'd been shopping because he absolutely hated the chore and that had been all he'd had left. And like the good moirail she was, Aradia would never let him live it down.

To be honest, he really did like the city he'd come to live in. Large enough to have everything he could want or need almost literally at his fingertips, yet not so large it felt like everyone was living on top of each other. It was also strategically placed so that even though there were definite seasons, none were severe. The people he chose to remain in contact with were close without being constantly on his doorstep. There was a balance here that didn't seem as right elsewhere. He didn't think as much about everything that was still the same, yet so very different. Like how there was only one moon in the sky, brilliant magenta when full, but otherwise waxing and waning in pearlescent pinks. Or how the things he ate tasted no different than what he'd eaten as a child, yet now came from animals known as cows, chickens, and pigs. The easy translation of words—hive to house, think-pan to brain, perigree to lunar month—was what tended to unnerve him the most because while the words sounded correct in his head and when he spoke, there was still the underlying notion that _he_ _shouldn't know them_ in the first place.

He understood what had happened and why. That was the price of living. The compromise that came with the ordering of paradox space demanded that both sides explicitly understood each other. Better to spend their years after The Game dealing with the normal societal assholes and bigots than in inadvertent war because of a stupid language gap or a misunderstanding of protocol. They had more than earned their resolutions without having to fight through them as well. Still, the dichotomy tended to bother him, so Sollux would put off any chore that required interacting with his new world until he absolutely had to do it. It had gotten easier over time, as true familiarity had settled in, and even easier after final maturation had kicked in. The truth of the matter, however, was that he now found himself at a point he never thought he'd be—alive. He'd never carried the hope that somehow, they'd win. He'd fully expected to die somewhere along the way, had multiple times in fact, yet never to a permanent enough degree it seemed. There was always some loophole, some exception that could be made. After being the plaything of Fate for so long, he hadn't really been surprised to wake after the last battle, nor had it been all that strange to blink and find his sight restored or his psionics once more crackling around his horns. Dismaying, perhaps, and certainly disheartening in the long run, but not surprising.

"_Maybe you don't want to be as dead as you think you do,_" Aradia had told him once when the ennui had been particularly bad. Given that he knew better than to question existential reasoning, Sollux had given up asking "why?" in favor of simply plodding along with however this life decided to play out; something that was easier done when locked in his apartment and staring at a computer screen than out in public.

Figuring that he'd spent enough time procrastinating, he drained his cup, set aside enough cash to cover his bill and a tip, and continued on with his errands. Considering how rarely he went out, he tended to make an event out of the nights he did. He'd already bypassed the more important tasks for picking over the new release game titles, arguing about graphics versus storylines with some of the employees there, splurging on a couple totally unnecessary upgrades for his husktop, then schooling several idiots failing to fix a simple reboot error, and now, dinner. Seeing as how the current time was three AM, the grocery store should have been relatively free of old ladies, who somehow gave him more of a headache than squalling pink children. The early spring night was nice, though, and he still wasn't all that interesting to braving the nearly deserted aisles of foodstuff, so he decided to take the long way back by wandering a bit.

For as uncomfortable as it could make him, there were perks to this new hybridized world. On the grandscale, it was the destruction of the hemospectrum, the now optional donation of genetic material to the Mother Grub, and the press-ganging into military service had ceased. Granted, a lot of trolls still went that route because their violent tendencies had been curbed, not eliminated; it just wasn't the only career path anymore. It was still possible to get culled, but only if you were a dumbass who started a fight you couldn't win. However, it was the small scale stuff Sollux found himself enjoying more. Like coffee, the concept of window shopping, and bean bag furniture. There was something liberating about being able to _walk_ down a warmly lit street. No hurrying, no scuttling, no desperate prayers to remain alone and head held high because you were looking at your surroundings and not being defiant or intimidating.

And because he was looking around, Sollux saw something he hadn't seen in a long time: nubby horns.

"KK?" The question was lost to the noise of the street, the other troll continuing on his determined path through the light crowd without a moment's hesitation. For a minute, Sollux thought that maybe he'd been wrong. After all, it had been quite a while since he'd physically seen his friend. Karkat was a still a mighty and formidable force online. They regularly irritated each other via texting and online gaming, but they hadn't occupied the same space since The Game ended. Then the other stopped at the corner, turning this way and that like he was trying to remember which direction he needed to go. A glimpse of a profile and the familiar gesture of aggravation when he got bumped aside by crossing traffic confirmed those nubby horns were indeed owned by Karkat Vantas. The acknowledgement felt stupidly good and before he really realized what he was doing, Sollux was trying to catch up.

It took two blocks and a near miss with a car before he was close enough to give the other a psionic shoulder tap. He stayed a few steps back, fully expecting a swing of a sickle to meet the gesture. Instead, Karkat came to a full halt, shoulders curling in defensively. "Fuck off, Eridan," he growled, sounding tired. "You said your piece, I said mine, and there's fuck-all else to discuss. Matter closed. Now leave me the hell alone."

There was a flash of —pain? anger? regret?—which prompted the response of, "Fish-dick lives here too? Fuck, now I have to move."

Karkat turned sharply, eyes wide. "…Sollux?"

Most of the good humor had abruptly vanished at the mention of Eridan, but Sollux scrounged up something of a smile. "Hey, KK."

The greeting was met with a groan. "Look, I've had a really long night, so if you're looking for a verbal dancing partner, go somewhere else. I'm not in the mood to dice words with anyone."

It was definitely a dull prick of pain that had him growling back, "If you weren't such a stubborn shit about everything, I'm sure you'd find your argument quota dwindling." Sollux raised his hands in a pacifying gesture before the other could retort. "Calm down. I didn't play in traffic trying to catch you so that we could argue, okay?"

"Then what do you want?"

Good question. Whatever he had been expecting, this wasn't it. "We haven't seen each other in sweeps. Is it so bad to want to talk face-to-face with my best friend after all that?"

The chuckle Karkat gave was colourless and exhausted, drawing attention to how colourless and exhausted he appeared. He somehow looked worse than any of those insomniac days spent on the meteor, even the ones right after waking on Prospit only to die immediately thereafter from Bec Noir's wrath. Final maturation had been nice to him, helping him grow tall and lean even if his horns remained stubby things that liked to get lost in his hair. He didn't look quite right, though. They weren't old enough yet to have their skin start darkening, still the almost childish ash grey, but even so, Karkat seemed to be exceptionally sallow. His blood colour had taken over the once grey irises, making his eyes bright, though it seemed like the wrong kind of brightness. His arms were crossed impatiently over his chest while his hands picked restlessly at the long sleeves of his shirt. Even the perpetual anger that drove him forward seemed to be floundering, more show than substance. Sollux wanted to ask if he was all right. Doing so would probably only lead to an argument, which he had already promised he wasn't going to do. So he chose something else.

"Where are you going?"

"Home. If I can find the fucking train station."

"I can take you. To the station," Sollux added quickly when Karkat glared at him with a mixture of vehement anger and honest panic, lips curled back in a silent snarl that spoke louder than any word that could be shouted. Whatever was wrong obviously hadn't impaired his friend's willingness to pick a fight. He was exceptionally paranoid about the location of his hive, more so now than he had been when he'd still been hiding his mutant blood colour. At this point, it might have been a better idea to simply step back and forget the whole thing had happened. The moment Sollux decided to do exactly that was also the moment Karkat relaxed, rubbing at his eyes, all signs of aggression now smothered under the predominant weariness.

"Would you?" he asked quietly. "I'm so turned around right now it makes a conversation with Lalonde and Kanaya seem straightforward and sensible."

Sollux gestured in the right direction with a snicker and they fell into step together. He was unreasonably pleased to see that he was still that much taller than Karkat. They walked quietly for a few blocks as they once more settled into the comfortable feeling of friendship. Then Karkat spoke up again.

"To answer your earlier question, no, Eridan doesn't live here. This was just a convenient meeting place. He lives a lot further north, out on the coast somewhere when he's not playing escort to Her Imperial Luminescence." Almost immediately, he stopped short with a guilty look. "Fuck, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"It's okay," Sollux replied smoothly. Time had definitely worn the pain of another failed matespritship thin, so he could ignore the small stab that still showed up whenever someone mentioned Feferi. "We were both kinda fucked over by the end of it all. The decision was mutual. And if she's happy, then I'm happy for her." They started walking again, and after another block or so, he gained the courage to ask something that had been bothering him. "So how come you came out of hiding to see the asshole fish, but not me?"

"You never asked." Karkat shrugged. "I didn't want to see him either, if that makes a difference. But he got on my case and wouldn't shut it until I agreed to meet with him. So I did, and those are five hours of my life I'll be very happy to never see returned if it means I never have to do something similar again."

"And what turned his gills inside out?"

"Everything, as usual. Mostly complained about how nothing was the same anymore. He got pretty pissy when I wouldn't tell him where I was or what I was doing these days. The whole thing started to give me a headache. I finally told him if he wanted someone to agree with him about how 'good' the old days were, he should find Equius and left. He, of course, tried to backtrack." The other troll shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it anymore; just go home and call it a night."

"I think it's one of the constants of the universe. Life, death, and ED being a douche-canoe. And you can go home because here we are." Sollux made a flourish with his hand as he gestured to the terminal they now stood outside of. He snickered when Karkat gave him a friendly shove, secretly pleased he'd managed to lighten his friend's mood some. "Seriously, though. If he keeps bothering you, just tell me. I've got this great new idea for a virus that begs to be tested on the most aggravating asshat I can find."

"You're going to send it to him anyway. Why should I offer you another reason?"

"Because I might have bought two copies of a certain new game by accident this evening and could be persuaded to hand one over if suitably compensated for it."

Karkat stared hard at him for a moment, then held his hand out expectantly. "The idiot linked his personal computer to his work one. The firewall hasn't been updated since it was installed and the anti-virus only protects the workstation. He's horrible about changing his passwords and keeps a list of them in the trash bin. There's an ungodly amount of female-on-female human porn shoved into a subfolder just off the main drive—I think he's developed a flush-crush on Lalonde. Light the motherfucker up."

Sollux grinned as he handed over the game. "As a token of my gratitude, I'll give you two nights to unlock as much as you can before challenging you to a strife."

"How magnanimous," Karkat scoffed, filing the game into his sylladex. "I can thrash you without any special weapons or power-ups. But seeing as how you _want_ to get schoolfed on the art of war, I'll be sure to repeat the lesson often and at high volume. Wouldn't want you to miss any of the finer points, after all."

"Your thoughtfulness never ceases to amaze me, KK. You are truly a bodhisattva of kindness and understanding."

"Try to kiss my feet and I'll kick your teeth down the sewer drain." He hesitated as he turned for the terminal doors. "Hey. …thanks."

With a careless wave, Sollux shrugged the gratitude off. "Two nights, nook-sucker. Then I'm going to start looking for you." Karkat rolled his eyes and extended a middle finger, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face as he finally turned and entered the building.

There was an immediate impulse to follow. Karkat seemed to know where everyone else had ended up, but no one knew where he'd finally put down roots. The closest anyone had gotten to an answer as to why was that after spending almost two sweeps crammed into such close quarters with a bunch of idiots, he had endured enough interpersonal interactions to last him the rest of his life. Sollux had found it hard to push after that, given his own self-imposed exile. Besides, even if he found out which train his friend was leaving on, he might not be able to trace it all the way back, though it could give him a direction and relative distance, and—

He mentally smacked himself. Karkat had already had one inconsiderate prick trying to invade his privacy tonight. Though there were dozens of reason to both advance and turn away, Sollux turned on his heel and walked away for no other reason than he refused to associate with Eridan in the slightest. It didn't matter how piqued his curiosity was, he would not pry where he was so obviously not wanted.

The night lost its charm. Now all he wanted was to go home as well. He sighed and cursed himself as an idiot for not completing the main tasks for his night first. Taking the shortest route he knew to first the grocery store, then the pharmacy, he made it back to his hive stem in record time. The task of making everything he'd just purchased fit into his kitchen helped burn through the rest of his agitation. Listless, but not tired, he flicked on his console to start trudging through the single-player campaign of his new game. He might have given Karkat extra time to become familiar with the controls, but that didn't mean he couldn't take advantage of that time, too. Then they would see who schoolfed whom.

* * *

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

Sollux stared at his computer screen and tried not to worry. He chewed on his lip as he watched his contact list, waiting impatiently for one of the names to spontaneously change from offline to active. He made himself get up, walk away, do something else. The problem was his apartment was tiny, so truly removing himself from the source of his contention was almost impossible. The computer was specifically placed in the main living area to be seen from virtually any corner he chose to be in. If he went to the respite area, he'd just pull out his phone. Coding or gaming was a lost cause with his attention so divided. Inevitably, he found himself right back in his chair, claws drumming on his keyboard as he tried to decide on what he should really be doing.

"This is stupid," he muttered under this breath, once more pushing away, running his hands through his hair as his mind ran over everything again.

There was no explicit rule that demanded online attendance. They were all adults now, for as terrifying as that thought could be some days. They had jobs, obligations, lives that all existed outside the bounds of the internet. Being absent from time to time was simply a fact of reality…except Karkat was always online. _Always._ Even the times he stepped away to do whatever, he still logged in and answered any post sometime during the night. He may have officially given up his title as leader these days, but that didn't make him any less of a focal point in any of their lives, human and troll alike. And no one had heard from him in four full cycles. Not since Sollux had walked with him to the train station.

Guilt flared like an insidious weed. He had known Karkat hadn't looked right, had had an opportunity to at least partially figure out where the hermitic troll had hidden himself away, and had done nothing on either front. That was the deep taproot no amount of justifying could manage to pull out. From there, tendrils of doubt spread, because he hadn't thought anything about Karkat's absence in the beginning. The first night had been completely ignored, the second noted, though dismissed. The third was actually taunted as cowardice since that was the night for their online battle. It wasn't until the fourth evening, his messages met with zero response that Sollux began to wonder if something was truly wrong.

He'd talked to everyone he could think of: John, Dave, Terezi, Nepeta, Kanaya, Kankri, Meenah, Jade…even went as far as to contact Eridan, for all the good it did. He went to all the places he knew Karkat hung around, various forums and chat rooms and websites, any place that he could convince himself didn't count as blatant hacking into the other's life, looking for insight. He found nothing. An entire night spent tracking old, decaying trails through cyberspace, and now a new evening with even less to work with. Of everyone, John and Dave had been the only two others to voice some concern. Their conclusions weren't any different than anyone else's, however. Karkat was allowed to take time to himself. He'd come back when he was ready. There was nothing to worry about just yet. It irritated Sollux that these "friends" didn't realize how concerning the situation already was just as much as it made him wonder if he was really making a huge deal out of nothing.

Well, there was _one_ way to be sure…

After waking to find that psionics were once again a part of his life, Sollux had purposefully tested his limits. The resurrection of his powers hadn't been complete. His eyesight had been regained, but not the ability to perform an optic blast. The power of transvection and psychokinesis was still his, albeit in lesser forms. The voices that had once haunted his every breathing moment now only roused when he willfully chose to use his Vision Twofold. Considering Mituna's psionics had come back following the same pattern, a complete loss of the power that had actually broken them, the reduced versions of traits used more passively, and then the circumstance to still use their most devastating ability but at an equally great cost, Sollux knew it wasn't just a quirk in the redesign. He could Look and See if something had happened to his friend.

He argued with himself for another hour before finally standing and getting his shit together. If he was wrong, at least he had a fridge full of food and a brand new bottle of his migraine meds. If he was right… He really hoped he was wrong. In short order, he'd gathered everything he needed in his bathroom. A roll of paper towels because at the very least, he was going to end up with a bloody nose. The migraine medication was open next to a glass of orange juice to help combat the immediate effects of blood loss. There were a couple of glow sticks spread out around the sink because the florescent light was too much, but he still needed to be able to see the bathroom mirror. He dragged in the largest bean bag he could fit into the space to catch himself on in case he collapsed or passed out. The facet was turned on as high as it would go to act as white noise. Satisfied he was as prepared as he could be, Sollux closed his eyes, fumbled the light switch off, and removed his glasses. Leaning against the counter, he pulled his awareness into his mind, focusing down until the only thing that existed was the Path, the Things That Had Been and the Things That Would Be. Cold prickled along the peripheral edges of his awareness as physical sensation faded away, the indication that he'd crossed over into the metaphysical.

Sollux took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and opened his eyes.

He could still feel his hands braced on the counter, the solid floor under his feet, but the reality of either was questionable. There was no longer a bathroom, an apartment, a hive stem, a city, or even really a world. He stared at a reflection that wasn't a reflection, but himself on the other side of the Path. Blackness stretched out to infinity on either side, filled with the afterimages of everything that had come into contact with his life across all time. What was illuminated had been mostly drained of colour, leaving only the twinned road through Oblivion defined, the red and the blue spiral that was his own journey. The gray connections moved around him as he sought his focus— an object or image that would connect him to his friend's fate. Other paths twisted and dissolved into the nothingness as he turned in place, careful not to move his feet as he searched.

It was Karkat's symbol that finally surfaced, an odd shade of gray compared to the rest of the miscellanea. When Sollux reached for it, fingers ghosting through, it lit up a burning shade of red. The Path adjusted, like now following like while the other remained unchanged. He took a step, slowly walking forward on both sides, conscious of where he was in either location with every movement he made, until the split diverged enough that he was two instead of one. Red Sollux now followed Karkat while blue Xander continued along their original route.

The darkness abruptly gave way to the last time both lives had crossed, outside the train station. The world was still gray, the furthermost details blurred and smudged beyond recognition, but each track retained its colour, as did the past forms of himself and Karkat. This time, when Karkat left, red Sollux followed him into the station while blue Xander continued through their past routine. Things became even more indistinct as he ghosted along behind his friend, the station itself a roiling mess of shadows that seemed to have no other form and filled with meaningless ambient noise that sounded like it was filtered through water. There was nothing that could tell him what train Karkat had left on. Time only skewed more the further he moved from their intersection since he was only preview to the points that were important to circumstance, leaving him no reference there either.

Once aboard the train, the whispering started, a rush of disquiet that was much more distinct than what was perceived from the surroundings, yet equally unintelligable. While Karkat stared out a blank window at the nonexistent scenery, the darkness started to creep in subtly around the edges. Two or three times during the trip, he looked ready to be sick to his stomach, sitting as still as he could in his seat, claws rhythmically kneading at the armrest in an attempted distraction technique. Then they left the train and started walking through what appeared to be a small town, then out into something of a rural, forested area. The whispering became louder, the darkness more prominent the further they went, stopping several times in order to subdue some increasing malady. The first weak light of day was already starting to sting when suddenly there was a hive, small and well-kept and so vivid it could only be Karkat's home. They were barely in the door before Karkat cursed quietly and made a stumbling dash to the nearest sink, retching pitifully. He was sweating by the time he was done, breathing unsteady as he made a half-hearted pass at closing the front door.

There was more cursing as the whispering became a low murmur. Despite obviously not feeling well, Karkat started working on something on his husktop instead of going to sleep. He started to tremble, eyes glazing over even as he struggled to power through it. Whatever was wrong became worse, forcing him to stop multiple times and curl into himself, arms wrapped protectively around his stomach and in enough obvious pain that tears would fall from his clenched eyes. In these times, the murmuring became almost understandable. And then it was back to work, fighting every step of the way against his condition until it seemed like he finally finished. The computer was shut down and Karkat tried to move on to whatever was next. His legs gave out after two steps. The murmurs became excited, steadily growing louder as he tried and failed to push himself back up. They became outright shouts when he finally stopped struggling, loud enough it made red Sollux's ears hurt and head throb. Louder still, an excited, senseless stream of words that continued to crescendo until something broke through the front door, which had only partially latched closed…

With a violent surge of will, the red and the blue spiraled back together. Red Sollux was caught and held by the safe, sane blue Xander until they once more became one and the same. He became Solluxander Captor once more and stepped back into the physical world still shuddering in horror. He choked on his first few conscious breaths, a thick metallic taste on his tongue making his already agitated stomach threaten rebellion. There was an unbelievable pressure in his skull, like something inside was threatening to explode, a point that probably wasn't far from the truth. He felt weak, strung-out as he fumbled with the running water, seeming to splash it everywhere except on his face as he tried to rinse the blood from his mouth. He swallowed three of his pills without a care that he was only supposed to take one at a time and slid to his prearranged pile with a fist full of paper towels pressed to his nose, trying to stem the blood flow.

Once the pounding in his head started to subside, Sollux blearily opened his eyes to the darkened ceiling of his bathroom and stared, asserting his presence in the physical world for a long time as he struggled against the fatigue of blood loss and mental over-exertion. For a while, it felt like it would never get better. Then, gradually, the screwed up signals of his body lessened, leaving him enough strength to reach for and sip at the orange juice waiting nearby. As the sugars in the juice began to kick in, Sollux took stock of the damage. His sinuses were clogged with clotting blood and the ringing in his ears proved to be (thankfully) nothing more than a byproduct of the pressure produced by said clogged sinuses. His lungs were sore from backflow and somehow, he'd managed to bite the tip of his tongue. The voices were still there, back to their murmurings. Now that his mind wasn't split into two separate functioning selves, Sollux could actually understand what was being said.

That got him back to his wobbly feet, leaning against the walls and what little furniture he had until he was once more in front of his computer. His nose was still dripping and his stomach was starting to cramp with hunger as he began his hack. Karkat's husktop might have been off, but that didn't mean Sollux couldn't track down the IP address it ran off of. The other troll had definitely become a better hacker since they'd initially met—he still wasn't as good as Sollux was. He ate while his programs tracked all the sites Karkat visited and compared data routes, trying to find the one consistent in all of them. He purposefully loaded up on sugar until it sang in his fangs and between his horns as he matched the IP address to a physical location. A quick consultation with a map, a changed shirt, and then he was out the door, up the stairs to the roof and finally out into the air itself, blazing a path towards his hopefully still alive target.

He had to stop twice to make sure he was still heading in the right direction. When Sollux touched down the third, it was in front of the hive he'd seen during the Vision. It looked even smaller and less grandiose than his initial encounter had suggested, but that was only a fleeting thought as he rushed toward the front door. It opened easily, banging against the wall loud enough to make him flinch. The sharpness of the noise emphasized the utter lack of sound in the hive. He closed the door, making sure it locked shut, then glanced around.

The main living area was completely open like his own apartment, save that the kitchen area was separated from the dining area with a low wall to support more cabinetry. A set of stairs lead to a second story. The furniture was all serviceable while the electronics were almost as good as Sollux's own. And there was the computer set up, which meant Karkat was… Sollux rounded the edge of the couch and found his friend exactly where he'd Seen the other fall. He didn't get a response when he spoke to or lightly shook the other, though Karkat did moan when he was rolled over. His skin was tacky with sweat and blistering hot to the touch.

The sugar rush that had gotten him there had already burned out. Adrenaline made a suitable replacement because he had to use his psionics to lift the other from the floor. Karkat was settled onto the couch as much out of convenience as necessity; the pressure was back in Sollux's head, telling him was pushing into dangerous territory if his continued to abuse his powers. Digging through a couple drawers in the nutrition block yielded some clean towels and washcloths and a bowl big enough to soak them in. There was more moaning as the wet clothes were pressed to Karkat's forehead and draped across his chest. Sollux poked around a bit more, glad to find some generic painkillers that he coaxed into his friend. Then all that was left was to wait and see if the care provided would be enough to change anything.

Four agonizing hours and a heart attack when something heavy thudded against the front door later, the fever-flush started to recede. Karkat's breathing evened out and deepened as true sleep crept in. Sollux took away the wet towel on the chest, but left the one on the forehead as he tucked in blanket to help keep an encroaching chill away. He kept himself busy in between doses of medication and washcloth rewetting by playing on his phone or exploring as much of the hive as he dared. Something instinctive told him not to tread up the stairs, so most of his snooping was relegated to the kitchen, which was stocked rather oddly. When even that failed to hold his attention, he dozed fitfully.

Jolted awake by his phone sometime during the midday, Sollux noted that something had changed. He checked on Karkat, who was still resting easy, and noticed how quiet everything had truly become. No lingering voices continued to float through his head, which still felt like it had been used as a wrecking ball. Karkat's fever hadn't fully broken, but it was no longer a threat, only a slight concern. Sollux heaved a sigh—the other was safe. He'd changed circumstance. And while he was more than certain he would pay for his transgression against Fate sooner than later, it was hard to feel anything except contentment when surrounded by such glorious silence.

* * *

To be continued.


	3. Chapter 3

A copy of my headcanon for troll xenobiology can be found on my tumblr page for anyone wanting more information.

* * *

Temporal punishment came swiftly as the afternoon hours blurred together into indistinction, jerking Sollux back to consciousness via a firm kick to the ribs that nearly knocked him from the couch. Unable to put two and two together quickly enough, a second kick sent him flailing to the floor, narrowly missing the coffee table with his head. The fresh burst of adrenaline swept away the lingering lethargy and helped reboot his think-pan. Karkat…was attempting to look threatening from where he was still pressed against the corner of the couch. It was a little hard to take the posturing seriously, though. He was still pale, still shaking, and practically hiding behind the blanket.

"Good evening to you too, sunspot," Sollux grumbled, picking himself up carefully. "Do you treat all guests this courteously, or am I just special?"

"Why are you here and how the holy flying fuck did you find me?" Karkat snarled.

"Most of my world revolved around computers, KK. How do you think I found you? And I wouldn't have to be here if you were such a stubborn crab about taking care of yourself." Sollux grabbed the medicine bottle and sincerely contemplated chucking it at the other troll. Something of a gentle toss is what he managed. "Speaking of which, take two. You're probably up for another dose anyway."

"Where the hell are you going?" The odd thread of panic in Karkat's voice had Sollux pausing. Though there was no possible way he could have the energy to do as such, his friend looked ready to tackle him.

"The load gaper, if you don't mind, then the nutrition block to see if you have anything that hasn't gained self-awareness left to eat." He didn't wait for a response. Keenly aware of how his movements were being tracked, Sollux moved purposefully, first to the bathroom, then into the kitchen. Though he'd been through it all a couple of times already, he made a show of searching through the cabinets like it was his first. He wondered how much of Karkat's food he could get away with eating. Between the use of his Vision, the prolonged flight here, and the help needed to get his friend onto the couch, the psionics had burned more than their fair share of calories. He was starving and feeling mildly sick from the sugar crash and residual anemia.

Middle ground was found in soup. Mild enough for a weak stomach, yet hearty enough to be filling. He still ended up mixing three cans of premade soup together and making a sandwich for himself before he was sure there was enough to go around. The presented bowl of mostly broth was taken without cynical comment, though Karkat did give him the "are you fucking kidding me?" eyebrow twitch when Sollux returned with his own, much larger, meal.

"Stuff it, Vantas," he snapped before any real comment could be made. Karkat's mouth remained shut and they ate in silence.

"So I guess this is where I'm supposed to say thank you," Karakt finally ventured about halfway through.

"If it's going to twist your nubs raw, then don't worry about it," Sollux replied around his second bowl of soup. "What you can do instead is start taking care of yourself. You're obviously well enough off to take a few sick-days here and there."

"It was a little fever. No big deal."

"Big enough to knock you unconscious for five nights." That earned him a startled look. "Yeah, five, dipshit, and now everyone thinks I'm fucking crazier for worrying about it in the first place. Hacking you IP wasn't something I did for shits and giggles, you know. I told you I understood wanting privacy and I meant it. But you fucking _disappeared_, KK, leaving me the last asshole to see you. That's a guilt I can totally live without."

Feeling like he was on the verge of saying something he didn't understand or want to accept, Sollux started cleaning up to distract himself. What was left of the soup got packaged up and put away. All the dishes were washed, dried, and returned to their rightful places. It didn't keep him active long enough to truly clear out his thoughts. Since there was really no place to pretend, he went back to the living room. Karkat looked appropriately contrite, but said nothing, fidgeting instead with the hem of the blanket.

"I'm sorry, okay?" he sighed in exasperation after a few moments of stilted silence.

"I don't want you to be sorry, KK. What I want is you screaming obscenities in my ear every fifth night when my kill count turns out to be higher than yours."

"You just want someone to gloat to."

"What's the point of having the high score if you can't gloat?"

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, fine. I'll take better care of myself. I promise." He paused, suddenly nervous. "You're…you won't tell anyone where I am, will you?"

Now it was Sollux's turn to sigh in exasperation. "You keep acting like a whiny wiggler and I'll tell Kanaya," he threatened, adjusting the dislodged blanket because it gave him something to do. "But otherwise—" He jerked back in confusion as Karkat suddenly curled into himself. "KK?!" He touched his friend's shoulder and was hissed at for the effort. "For fuck's sake… Breathe, dumbass. I know it hurts, but you have to breathe though stomach cramps."

He recognized the maneuver from the Vision and wondered if broth had been a good idea to start with. Slowly, he got the other to unfurl and relax, but when his hand reached for the presumably tender area, it was slapped away. Two more tries were met with similar success. "Will you just relax? I'm trying to help."

"I'm fine," Karkat gritted back.

"The hell you are." This time, Sollux reached out with his psionics. Karkat swore as he was held down, but that only lasts as long as it took for a physical hand to land on his stomach. Despite keeping the touch purposefully light, every reaction the other troll had was one of pain. Immensely concerned about something more serious than a muscle cramp, Sollux ripped away the blanket and pushed Karkat's shirt aside, carefully tracing his fingers along the surprisingly toned abdomen, trying to pinpoint the source of discomfort.

He expected it to be high, somewhere along the diaphragm, or maybe a bit off to the side from a muscle tweaked by improper positioning. The only tension he found, however, was the same pain-induced tension found everywhere else. Slowly, Sollux started probing down further, growing more concerned and confused as he went. There was no sign of true pain until his fingers reached the waistband of Karkat's pants. That's when he also noticed the faint red swelling there and felt something lurch in his own stomach. Completely ignoring the pleas to do otherwise, he used his psionics to pull the sweatpants down just enough to see.

For a minute, all Sollux could do was stare because he didn't want to think about what he was seeing. Karkat was still whining softly, shifting in discomfort, or embarrassment, or probably both, but the sound was distant and partially disconnected. The only thing in the world that was horribly, terribly real at the moment was the swollen and bruised bone bulge he was currently staring dumbfounded at. Everything between his hips looked painfully tight, mottled with discoloration as it went further down until there was nothing except inflamed red at the juncture of Karkat's legs. Sollux ghosted a hand over the too-hot skin, trying to unsee, unthink the implications. Even that much pressure had Karkat writhing in pain. Tears ran unheeded as he struggled within the psionic grip keeping him pinned down, choking on sounds that seemed to be screams.

Reality finally sunk in. Nausea warred with the need to splatter the walls with blood. The bulge was infected, severely so, and considering all of a troll's reproductive organs were enclosed within the body for a reason, there was a very short list of ways any of it could be damaged enough to become infected like this. And then Sollux remembered how skittish his friend had been out on the street, withdrawn, tired, cold, and uneasy after his meeting with Eridan. Eridan, who had threatened Karkat enough to get the reluctant troll out in public. That short list narrowed immediately to one answer: rape.

The sound of static filled his ears as the urge to disembowel something increased even though his conclusion made zero sense. Eridan was an arrogant asshole with a melodramatic bent, but Karkat was one of the few trolls he didn't actively attempt to piss off or fight with. Karkat was one of the most capable fighters in their group—he'd more than earned his title as Knight. But Sollux couldn't ignore the possibility, either. He had to bow his head and clench his hands as he attempted to wrestle his powers back into line. It had been a very long time since they had jumped so badly out of his control that it took a lot of teeth grinding and even breathing to regain something close to a safe amount of mastery; just enough that he could look at his friend and demand an answer without completely flying off the handle.

"Who?" he finally asked quietly.

"Wh-what?"

He took another slow, deep breath to tighten the leash on his anger a little more. "Who did this to you?" The return of silence frayed his restraint. "Tell me!" he growled as the windows rattled with the short burst of power that also manifested.

Wide red eyes stared at him, obviously terrified and anger totally wasn't what Karkat needed from him right now, but damned if Sollux could let it go enough to be gentle and understanding in this moment. He bared his teeth in an effort to vent some of his simmering rage, but all it did was make Karkat cringe and yelp, "No one! No one did anything!"

"_Liar!_" This time, the whole room shook.

"I'm _not_ lying! I live in the middle of godforsaken nowhere. I buy everything online, including groceries, and the first time I've been out of this fucking hive since I moved in was a week ago to see Eridan. No one's done anything to me." There were still tears staining his cheeks, but Karkat had gathered enough strength to glare. "Please, Sollux, just leave. I'll be fine in a few days, now that the fever's broken up. It'll go away just like it always does and I'll be fine."

"…Just like it—" Shock stalled out anger. "This has happened before?"

Karkat flushed and looked away. "Yes, fuckass, it's happened before. It happens pretty regularly, if you must know. It's just been somewhat worse this time around, is all. I've never passed out from the fever before, but I wasn't exactly allowed to wait it out, either."

A couple of the inconsistencies flipped themselves over in Sollux's mind, bridging gaps and filling holes and suddenly, there was a very different picture being painted. If it wasn't rape, then the only other answer was… He sighed and rubbed his temple, trying to ease the sudden headache forming there. "KK, when was the last time you pailed?"

The flush turned from a light dusting of pink to bright scarlet. "F-fuck you!" he managed to stammer out after hissing like a kettle for a few minutes.

"AA helped me with that last week," Sollux deadpanned. "Now answer the question. When was the last time you filled a bucket?" The longer it took Karkat to answer, the more assured Sollux became in his own conclusion. He waited it out, though. He'd already made the wrong assumption once. Until he heard it directly from his friend's mouth, he wasn't going to act on his knowledge.

"All right, fine," Karkat muttered, studiously focused on the ceiling and nothing else. It looked like all the blood in his body was sitting in his face. Even his hair seemed to take on the cherry hue because of the force of his embarrassment. "I've never pailed, okay? I've thought about it, I've wanted to, it's just…" He shrugged a bit helplessly. "I've had other things to do. It never seemed that important once everything ended and everyone came back. And…and I know it doesn't matter anymore, but I'm still a mutant freak."

"And you've killed off every red relationship before it got that far," Sollux added when Karkat went silent. A slight nod was all he got for conformation. He sighed heavily, feeling all his earlier anger turning into frustration. "Jesus fucking Christ, KK, I always knew you were a dumbass, but this is too stupid, even for you. Did you skip that lesson in your schoolfeeding, or just assume your shitty romcoms knew better?"

"Shut up!"

"No! Because even _Kankri_ is smart enough to remember that the body has to expel its genetic material once a perigree after sexual maturation. And _he_ wouldn't know what to do with a bucket if someone bent him over one." Sollux had to get up, move, and hope the movement would keep his thoughts from tripping over themselves any more than they already were. "I mean, fuck, the first couple of times are really goddamn important. Curiosity alone should have helped with that. And it's not like we're still stuck in the 'fuck or die' era here. You don't have to have a concupiscent partner to do it…you don't have to have a partner at all! I mean it's nice when someone else is around and I admit AA's had to goad me into it a couple times, but still, I haven't blatantly…" He trailed off as his thoughts reordered themselves again.

After The Game had ended, a lot of relationships had broken up. Some had survived, but not many. Everyone was alive after all and second chances abounded. Feferi hadn't been interested in continuing their matespritship when the dust had finally settled. Not that he'd been eager either—spending as much time as he had mixed up with Eridan as a sprite had really screwed up his own feeling for her. Since then, he hadn't exactly been keen on trying to fill that quadrant a third time. Even now, he wasn't really interested. Being able to be pale with Aradia helped keep him in line, as was the duty of a moirail. So where was Karkat's diamond shield? Where was the one who should have stopped this before it started? Prevented it from getting this bad? Helped this along as naturally as possible when the idiot refused to take care of it himself? Where was Gamzee and why the fuck had he let this go on like it had?

He asked, and there was no reply. Karkat went shy on him again, giving evasive answers, if he answered at all. The anger came back. Gamzee was psychotic, unpredictable, and a general menace. Terezi was proof he could fuck someone up long after a relationship ended. But he had been a damn good moirail for their volatile leader. High enough in the spectrum to offer near ultimate protection, laid back enough to not take the rambling personally, and stubborn enough that he could pierce the "fuck you" attitude Karkat wore like armour. Of all the relationships that would have survived, the pale between Gamzee and Karkat had come in right after Mituna and Latula's flush.

"It's not his fault!" the other troll finally snapped in frustration, tears beading in his eyes again. "You don't have a goddamn clue what it's been like since the game ended. For him. For me. So shut your slobbering face gash or I'll shut it for you!"

The situation in front of him was all the "clue" Sollux felt he needed on the matter. There was another click in his mind, however. No, he didn't know what it had been like for many of the others. With the exception of Aradia, his interactions remained mostly limited to online with anyone from his old circle of friends. There were a couple of the semi-ancestors he associated with as well, but for the most part, his list of physical contacts remained small. Until now, online had been the only way he'd interacted with Karkat at all. He'd never seen Gamzee, though, never even heard second hand information about him. Now that he thought about it, the murder clown had been completely absent from their new world and new lives. Other than to express a sort of universal "fuck that guy" sentiment, no one else had even noted that fact.

"What happened after The Game?" he finally asked, watching as Karkat quietly broke down into tears again. "KK, what happened to you and GZ after we won?"

"W-won?" There was a wet sneer. "Right. Sure. We'll go with that."

"Tell me."

"Just let it go."

"No. Tell me what happened."

"You don't understand."

"I'm trying to, but I'm the only one doing any talking here. Do you have any idea how wrong all of this is, KK?" he continued before he could be put off again. "I know I'm a douchenozzle of a friend, but _fuck_, I want to help you. Stop fighting with me for ten fucking seconds and let me, you paranoid asshole!"

After a couple tense moments, during which it looked like he was going to continue arguing, Karkat relaxed instead. Deflated in defeat might have been a better description. Everything went lax so suddenly that Sollux was half afraid the other had passed out again.

"Swear…" he said softly, blinking the excess moisture from his eyes. "Swear to me you won't…do something. Anything. You, you can open the door. You can look, but you can't—_you can't_—go inside. Swear that you won't. Swear that no matter what you feel, _you won't touch him._ Because if you do, I will fuck you up, Captor. I will fuck you up so badly your corpse party will be celebrated with your body present in a fucking glass."

Sollux blinked. Not only was that the most creative insult he'd heard so far, but the protective growl of a moirail was behind every word, unmistakable despite how the voice wavered. Karkat still obviously took his part of their relationship seriously. No matter what else had happened afterwards, their pale had not broken. He could only give back an equally serious response.

"I swear on Aradia's life, no harm shall come from me."

"…he's upstairs." All the strength had finally left Karkat's voice. He looked absolutely broken for admitting as much, tears falling faster than he could wipe them away. "First door on the left."

Barely nodding in acknowledgement and hesitating over whether he should be moving toward or away from his friend, Sollux headed for the stairs. The second floor was entirely too quiet. Gamzee had always been the type to make a lot of noise, so the marked absence was shocking and troubling. He paused at the indicated door and just listened, trying to get a feel for what he might be walking into. There was a very faint honk on the other side, a pause, a honk, a pause. Rhythmic, like breathing. Sollux twisted the doorknob and let the door swing open.

The walls had been lined with posters no sane person would be caught sleeping in a room with. The usual debris of Faygo bottles, bike horns, and other assorted Gamzee-esque belongings were strewn about in oddly neat clusters, as if they'd been placed, not left. There was a modified human bed, around which was some expensive looking medical equipment and on which was the troll in question. He was thin, pale, and without make-up, breathing easily with a slight smile still curling his lips.

Sollux closed the door as quietly as he could, then turned to lean against the nearby wall. The occasional hitching sob that drifted up the stairs said more than all the words could have. The isolation, the reluctance, the rapid switch between fierce aggression and rending sorrow made sense now. Sollux closed his eyes and thumped his head against the wall, feeling like twelve different kinds of an ass.

Gamzee couldn't help Karkat because he'd never woken up again.

* * *

To be continued.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter has been edited for content. The full version has been cross-posted on Adultfanfiction and AO3 under the author name Grimreaperchibi.

* * *

Two sweeps. Four and so much extra human years. That's how long it had been since the last curtain closed and The Game ended. Truly ended. No scratch, no reset, no Skaia and her moons, no genesis frog or paradox clones. Simply a world left behind where humans roamed by day, trolls came out at night, and despite such vastly different cultures and habits, both got along relatively well. The whole experience had been as if they'd all awoken from a "dream," complete with knowledge of how this was supposed to work from before "falling asleep." As if this was the way things had always been.

That's how long Karkat had been taking care of Gamzee. Completely alone. He never once walked away, never complained, never breathed a word to anyone no matter how all the rest of them had degraded the purple blood—precisely because they had. Sollux couldn't even begin to think about how much time Karkat spent in that room, working so hard for a body that was still slowly failing. It was easily the most lived in room he'd seen so far, and that only made the feeling twisting in his guts worse. Because he knew exactly how horrible it felt to be too alive to die, yet too dead to live…

He took a breath and smothered his feelings as best as he could because right now, he was feeling too much to make sense of any of it. The only thing he could do was keep progressing in a linear, task-oriented fashion and hope it all made sense later. Right now, he had a friend who needed to be taken care of, and since he was there, it might as well be him. So he took another breath, locked up everything extra floating in his head, and went back downstairs.

Karkat was still lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling when he returned, looking beyond exhausted. At least the tears had stopped again. Sollux leaned over his friend, waiting for eye contact before speaking. "KK, your bulge has become infected," he said softly, keeping to the point because facts were the only thing he could safely offer. "It's not going to just go away, only get worse. The fluid needs to be completely drained out before it becomes anymore septic. I'm not going to lie, it's going to hurt. A lot. But it needs to happen before you get any sicker. I…I'm willing to do this, but if you don't want me to, I can find someone el—"

"No." Karkat shook his head. "No one else. Everyone else still hates him so much and I… I wouldn't be able to…"

"Shoosh." Sollux reached down and ran his hand through his friend's hair, absently wiping away the extra moisture still clinging to pale skin. Karkat looked so fragile and thin—and he wasn't thinking about feelings, just facts. "I had to offer. This isn't going to be a pleasant experience for either of us. We might not be able to look at each other again afterwards. …Do you still want me to do this?"

"No," Karkat spat out blatantly, "I don't want you to do it. _I don't want anyone to do it_." Red eyes bored into his, solid, steady, and determined. "But if it has to be done by someone, then it should be you."

"Okay." That hadn't sounded very convincing or sincere, so Sollux tried again. "Okay. I have to go get some stuff, but I'll be back. Don't go anywhere."

That earned him a derisive snort. "Where the fuck could I possibly go, dumbass? You've still got me pinned to this damn couch with your goddamn psionics."

Sollux snickered as he belatedly released the hold. "Uh…oops?"

"Oops, my ass." Karkat adjusted and settled with only a few hisses of pain. "Go on, you insufferable prick. It's not like I've got anywhere else to be."

He didn't wait for a second admonishment. On impulse, Sollux leaned down and pressed a kiss to Karkat's forehead, and then shot for the door.

Considering embarrassment alone had stopped him from performing a basic health requirement, there was a good likelihood that if he was given enough time to think about all of this, Karkat would try to wiggle back out again. Sollux was already giving him too much time as it was by having to go all the way back into the city to get what he needed. He couldn't afford to be anything except fast and precise.

His thoughts were racing very fast, but they weren't exactly precise in their trajectory. Heating pad. Anti-inflammatory meds and creams. Topical analgesics, ice packs, aloe, and lidocaine, and vitamin E. A neutral lubrication and lots of it he could use to… Towels. He still needed towels and a bucket and holy fuck, what the hell did he think he was doing? He should be dragging Karkat to a hospital, not attempting to play sick-nurse himself. He knew basics, theories, and had some practical working knowledge. If this wasn't done right, he'd only be exacerbating the problem at best, and killing his friend at worst, and—

"Get the fuck over yourself, Solluxander," he snarled, only partially aware he was speaking aloud. "You don't get to just barge in like you did and then bail when shit gets serious. Show some spine, shitlord, and help your friend like you said you would. You're _not_ going to fuck this up."

He paused in his frenzied captchaloguing to stare into the bathroom mirror. That's what really scared the hell out of him right now—screwing this up somehow and adding the death of another important person to his list of lifetime achievements. Aradia had died because he couldn't control his power; Feferi, because his power hadn't been enough. Through both, Karkat had been the anchor that kept him grounded and safe. And now, he had to protect and help the one who'd never let him give up and it didn't matter how powerful or skilled he'd become. He was terrified he still wouldn't be enough to make a difference.

There was no other option, though. Taking Karkat away to a hospital would only leave Gamzee exposed, the results of which had already been witnessed that night they'd met on the street. He wouldn't stay for treatment, and even if they tied to him to the bed and forced it on him, he'd only make himself sick with worry over his moirail. In-home treatment was the best option there was. At the least, it offered something other than a painful, slow, obscure death. So Sollux would do this because his friend deserved much more than that.

"And I won't fuck it up," he reaffirmed before starting to pack again.

It was only on the way back that he realized a lot of the things he was bringing were probably redundant. It never hurt to have extra, however. By the time he landed again, the moon had set. He'd made better time than he'd thought, but had still been away far too long. Karkat was still on the couch, though it was obvious he'd tried to get up and move a couple times. He started pretty badly when Sollux walked in, then curled up shyly when he was approached.

"Do you still want me to do this?"

"I already answered that." The colour flared on Karkat's cheeks again as he tried to hide behind his blanket.

"And I'm asking again. Because I need you to be sure about this."

Karkat looked like he would have happily just melted through the floor at any point. "…It's got to be done, right?" Sollux nodded. "Then yes, I want you to do it."

With confirmation granted, preparations began. Half of the things he'd brought were de-logued onto the nearby coffee table. The rest was dumped into the kitchen area. Sollux worked in silence, not because he needed to concentrated, but simply because he didn't know what to say. Nothing would take away his friend's embarrassment or discomfort. There were no words that could give either of them the assurance that this would all turn out fine between them later. He wanted to joke and make it better, but only apologies waited on his tongue.

The end of the couch got piled up with pillows to make it more comfortable. The heating pad was slipped under Karkat's back to help with the tension there. Blankets were rearranged, jars were organized, and—

"Two buckets?" Karkat asked, equal parts teasing and mortified as one was set close to his end.

"That one's in case you get sick."

The colour drained out of his face so fast, Sollux thought the other might need it before they started. The strained silence came back. All in all, Karkat held it together well until Sollux had finished with all the stalling he could and stripped off his shoes and shirt. "Whoa, wait! What the fuck—"

"This isn't going to be clean and I like this shirt and these shoes." He settled onto the other end of the couch, gently rearranging Karkat's legs around him. Though it pained him, the other kept trying to draw his knees together and up every time Sollux pulled them down and apart. His hands steadily inched up further with each draw until a little bit of pressure on the knees kept each leg where it was supposed to be. Karkat trembled, taking slightly unsteady breaths, but didn't fight the positioning.

At least, he didn't until Sollux started trying to remove his pants. "No, I've changed my mind. I don't care."

"You do too care. You've already given me permission twice and I'm not going to leave until this gets done." He leaned forward, catching the hands that were trying to push his away. "KK, look at me," he said softly. "This…this isn't sexual, okay? We're not pailing. We're not quadranted. This isn't your first time and neither of us is cheating on our moirals by doing this. This is only practicality. You need help and I'm providing it. That's all."

"I know." Karkat squeezed his hands tightly. "Fuck, I know! But it still feels like it…"

"I know. That's why I'm telling you it's okay, dipshit. And I want to make this as least traumatic as I can, but if I have to force the issue, I will, no matter the cost. I don't want it to come to that, so I need you to relax a little okay?" Karkat nodded slightly. "Would you feel better taking them off yourself?" Another short nod. Sollux squeezed his hands reassuringly and sat back.

"Don't… Don't stare," Karkat scolded, shaking as he fussed.

"I have to look so I can see what I'm doing."

"Looking isn't the same as staring, fucknub. _Don't stare._"

"Whatever you say, KK."

There were a few more grumbles as the pants were slowly slipped off. Sollux was allowed to help pull them free once the cloth was pushed down past the knees. The trembling returned with force as they once more played the game of shifting legs, though it was a shorter version this time. A quick glance showed everything was as bad as had been feared, bruised an almost uniform dark red. How the hell had Karkat lived with this for as long as he had? The question was ignored as he reached for the first jar.

Touch was fine by now from ankle to knee, so Sollux started by massaging in the first round of topicals just above the knee. He went slowly, working the cool gel in completely in one spot before moving further up. By the time he reached Karkat's hips, the other had stopped trembling and relaxed slightly. He switched to a heavier, thicker salve for everything between the hip bones, which let him apply it with minimal initial pressure. Karkat whined and gasped, jerking away until the numbing properties kicked in.

"Doing okay?" Sollux asked when there was nothing but a little shaky breathing happening.

"Yeah," was the sighed answer. "Shit feels weird."

"I'm sure." He paused. "KK, I'm going to need to pin you down now."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because my claws are about to breach some very unhappy tissue and even if I shield them, if you jerk wrong, it could cause a lot of damage. You can't move at all and the only way to ensure that is to lock you down with my psionics."

The nerves started to come back as Karkat chewed on his lip. "Can we… Can't we just use the creams and stuff?"

"The genetic sacs have to be massaged into release the first couple of times to get them acclimated to it. You've built up so badly that you probably can't release without the direct stimulation."

"Then why the hell are you asking for permission?"

"Because I can pin just your hips, or your whole body. This is really going to hurt and sometimes movement helps with the pain. It's up to you."

"Just my hips then. I don't want to feel more helpless than I already am."

Sollux just nodded, already layering his restraints. "Give me your hands. I don't want you clawing yourself up. And keep your mouth open. This is kind of pointless if you bite your tongue off and die in the middle of everything." Satisfied with his work, Sollux shielded his own hand and covered it with lubricant. A whine met the slight touch of his fingers to the still firmly sealed seedflap. He looked up to meet Karkat's apprehensive gaze. "It's okay to scream and swear. That helps some, too."

"You're not helping," Karkat replied flatly, scrunching his eyes closed. "Just do it already."

It went on and on for what felt like nights. In reality, it had only been a couple of hours. Sunlight was just starting to pour through the eastern facing windows when Karkat's body finally clenched the way it was supposed to. A couple more extra firm strokes and finally, _finally_, some of the built up material released. It wasn't a lot and Sollux wasn't even going to question the colour or texture of what ended up in the bucket. But given the low groan from Karkat before his eyes rolled up into his head and he properly passed out, at least some of the pressure had eased.

Sollux took a couple minutes to just breathe, numb and exhausted, but not quite finished yet. When his blood pusher stopped racing, he started to clean up. The forethought of placing towels had helped keep the damage to a minimum. His pants were still wrecked and it was probably a good thing Karkat's claws had ripped the couch open in a couple places because a few of the cushions were never going to come clean. Everything creaked and popped when he stood and shuffled towards the kitchen. He carefully washed away the lube and errant genetic material from Karkat's still heavily bruised skin with some warm water and a washcloth before laying on the analgesics again. Another towel was wrapped around his hips to keep whatever modesty he had left and then the blankets were tucked in. After a little poking around, he found the laundry. While the used towels and his pants got washed, the contents of the buckets were disposed of. Then he found a shower for himself. The thought of eating came and went as he cycled the washing, closed the blinds against the light of day, and checked in on Gamzee just because it felt polite to do so. Wandering around in just his boxers and shirt should have felt weird, but he was too tired at that point to care about much of anything. He barely managed to make a pile near the couch before he crashed himself.

When he awoke with a panicked start a couple hours later, he grabbed his phone and sent a text to Aradia.

TA: ii know you won't get thii2 untiil later but ii found kk.  
TA: cant 2ay anymore than that becau2e of rea2on2.  
TA: ii ju2t diidnt want you two think ii went on another bender agaiin 2iince you miight not hear from me for a whiile.  
TA: fuck iim rambliing 2orry.  
TA: point ii2 would you miind comiing over when ii get fiinii2hed wiith thii2?  
TA: becau2e  
TA: fuck  
TA: a2k me later.

* * *

To be continued.


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter has been edited for content. The full version is posted on AO3 and AFF under the author name Grimpreaperchibi.

* * *

It took three cycles for the swelling to go back down enough that the process could be repeated. The first night after was spent wildly oscillating between sniping at each other and apologizing. Karkat kept insisting he was well enough to do whatever he spent all his time doing while Sollux thought otherwise. Everything became a fight between them and more than a couple of times, Sollux had to step outside to scream or destroy something before the urge to do as such to one stubborn crab of a troll overwhelmed him. The next night, he went back to his own hive, mostly because neither of them could stand the other anymore. He lost himself in his next project, ignoring the rest of the world as he promised himself he wasn't going to ever leave his hivestem again. The third night, he was just as surprised as his friend to be standing outside the door, restocked and ready for another go. Karkat let him in after a bit of awkward staring and stuttering.

He looked better—still tired, still flushed with fever, still obviously in pain and therefore delicate about everything he did and bitchy in temperament—but considering the mess he'd been in to begin with, Karkat couldn't have really looked much worse. He still fussed, and whined, and tried to squirm out of doing something about his condition, though it wasn't as vehement as it had been before. The pain was still very real. The process was still long and involved. And when they finished this time, there was a little more material in the bucket then there had been the last time. Sollux cleaned up, collapsing into a half-assed pile for the uncertain rest he needed, and then left the next night instead of staying and fighting some more. It became something of a predictable pattern. Fly out to the secluded hive, help drain out a bit of the infection, spend an uncertain day making sure there were no complications, leave again for a few days until the other was recovered enough to try again.

A part of Sollux loathed leaving. Karkat was in no position to protect himself or Gamzee against a wet paper bag, let alone anything more substantial. They were toxic together afterwards, however. Their friendship was already pretty damaged because of what was happening. There was no point in actively ripping it further apart. And just because his own contrary nature demanded it, there was another part of Sollux who hated having to go back, hated having to fight and devastate something that had never been stable between them in the first place. He could feel the cracks going deeper every time he showed up to that surprised face, which hurt in ways he wasn't willing to think about yet, if ever.

Doing this wasn't just destroying Karkat, it was destroying him as well, and there was nothing for it.

All in all, the whole process took a perigree and a half. As more and more of the infection was drained away, the swelling reduced and the recovery time in between dwindled. Three days gradually became two, then became one, then became twice in a night with another day of recovery. Karkat's colour improved, his fever fully broke, and the bruising faded, though he never did fully lose the embarrassment that came with the task. That more than anything was what had Sollux returning one more time, armed and ready for a fight.

Karkat complained the whole time, but let him in nonetheless. "Jesus fuck, Captor, I'm fine. Nothing's changed since the last time you were here. Or do you actually get off on playing lusus?"

"Roleplaying in general can be kind of fun, but I don't have lusus issues to work though, so it tends to kill my writhe before it really starts." It was possible to hear Karkat's jaw drop open and the resulting silence meant Sollux had caught the other off guard. Good, because there was no easy way to do what he planned and it made him feel better to know they were both on shaky ground. "What about you, KK?" he asked as casually as he could, dumping a bunch of stuff onto the coffee table like he usually did. "What pushes your buttons?"

The answer was something of an inaudible squeak. "What the fuck?! I'm not discussing this with you!"

Sollux pinned his friend's feet to the floor with a curt gesture, fighting his own instinct to leave. "Fucking is exactly what I'm talking about and if you don't want to say anything, that's fine too. But we're not doing this again. You're going to get over this stupid embarrassment about pailing so that you don't fucking neglect yourself again for so long you make yourself sick." He felt so tired and that exhaustion had to be the reason his voice sounded off. He also blamed it for the twinge of pain that tagged along with his snap of, "The faster you get over yourself, the sooner I'll leave you the hell alone."

It took a minute for Karkat to find his voice again. "So what? You're going to hold it for me? Is that it?" he sneered even as his cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"If that's what it takes, yes."

For the second time in as many minutes, Karkat was struck silent, staring with a mixture of anger, mortification, and fear. It made Sollux's stomach twist, made bile rise in his throat at the simple thought. It was a pretty shitty threat to issue at all. Not that he'd actually be able to follow through—hell, as it was, he was probably already pushing too hard. Making the other afraid of the act wasn't going to get either of them anywhere. Not to mention the raking pain left in the wake of that look. That alone was almost enough to make him sick on the spot. His best friend was _scared_ of him…if he even got to call them friends anymore.

He swallowed hard and locked his feelings up again, breaking their stare-down first. "KK…what happens the next time?" he asked quietly. "I found you passed out on the fucking floor. I could have been anyone. _Anyone_ could have come in here and done whatever they wanted. To you. To GZ. And no one would have known."

"That wasn't what happened."

"But it could have," Sollux insisted, tapping the side of his glasses. "It's not all consuming now, but I still have the Vision. That's why I hacked your IP. Because I Looked and Saw how very differently this could have ended."

And that shut Karkat up for the third time. Normally, that would have been something worth mentioning, but in the current circumstances, it only made Sollux feel more exposed. He was talking too much, Karkat was talking too little, and the whole mess seemed as pointless and as stupid as any of their other arguments, only it really wasn't.

"Okay." It's said in an unusual tone, but there wasn't time to interpret it as Karkat coughed and repeated it. "Okay. Fine." Back to the normal snark, and thus back to more familiar territory. "What the hell are you suggesting?"

Now it was Sollux's turn to fight the rising colour in his cheeks. He waved a hand to the things he'd dumped on the table. "Jacking Off 101. Porn. Lube. A bucket." This plan had sounded so much better in his head. And just in case things couldn't get anymore more awkward, he added, "I'll even do it with you." The look he received immediately made him regret the choice of words. "That's not what I meant. I meant…fuck, no matter how I say it, it's going to sound wrong."

"So. Just because you have seen all the porn on the internet does not mean you're an expert of the subject." Karkat allowed with a mocking smile as he cautiously approached the couch from the other side. "Good to know."

"Blow it out your aural sponge, KK, and just pick a damn movie."

There was quite literally a little bit of everything in the pile he'd brought, from straight forward blackrom to the heavy fetishistic redrom to the almost-pale-so-why-is-there-a-bucket-at-all and everything in between. Considering he didn't think Karkat even knew what his turn-ons were, it had seemed a safe decision to make at the time. It might have been wise to at least sort them into something of an order, however, instead of leaving everything mixed uncertainly together. Sollux was pretty sure the other troll was just going to pass out on him before he found something that didn't make his think-pan implode.

It didn't come as much of a surprise when what was picked up turned out to be something classically middle-of-the-road. What was a surprise was the fact that a redrom movie was ultimately chosen. Caliginous sex was a little boring in its portrayal simply because the logistics were so set. That's also what made it a safe place to start experiencing sexuality. There were rules and boundaries, and because it was almost ritualistic in its performance, there was very little that was unexpected or unaccounted for. There still needed to be trust between the partners, that was a given. There just wasn't as much needed for it as there was for the high-end redrom bondage that seemed really popular these days.

The shoe-string storyline linking the sex scenes together was beyond atrocious and it was fairly obvious there was only one set of mates who actually felt anything for each other, but it got the job done. By the end of the first scene, Karkat was shifting somewhat uncomfortably on his end of the couch and Sollux could feel the beginnings of his own writhe low in his abdomen. With all the nonchalance he could muster, he kicked off his shoes and undid his pants, stretching out like it was most natural thing in the world. He glanced over when he heard Karkat's nearly scandalized intake of breath to find the other attempting to look like he wasn't watching. Considering his face was already scarlet, Sollux didn't comment and went back to trying to make the movie more interesting than it really was.

They were halfway through the film when Karkat let out a frustrated sigh. "I don't think this is working. All I feel is kind of sick again."

"That's because you're still curled up in the corner and tense. Stretch out a bit and relax."

"Easy for you to say…" Still, Karkat stretched out, mimicking the position Sollux had taken up.

"Still feel sick?"

"Yes…no…" There was some more shifting about. "I just feel weird."

"Wow. That's really informative."

"Shut up! It…it feels like when I was sick. Really hot and heavy down…but not like I want to puke or anything like I did then."

"That's your bulge wanting attention, KK." Sollux pushed his pants down a bit and leaned back, exposing the slightly swollen skin over his own bone bulge. "See? It's normal." It was hard not to flush self-consciously at the rapt attention Karkat was suddenly giving him. "Try pressing on the bone a bit. That should feel good now that everything's working like it should." The look turned dubious, but the comment was apparently taken as a challenge. The moan that crawled from his throat put the noise from the television to shame. Sollux swallowed a nervous chuckle and now tried to focus on something that wasn't his friend.

"Now what?" The question was a bit breathless, voiced in the middle of a rather protracted scene between two mates who were trying too hard to like each other. A part of Sollux wanted to smack the other troll and ask if he was paying any attention to the movie at all. Most of the scenes had gone through the same motions enough times to get more than a general idea. It did open the door, however, for him to stop fighting his own attention span. Only so that it was easier to demonstrate, he told himself, but there was still a thrill when his actions were mimicked. A swipe of the psionics dropped a small bottle of lube into each of their hands (since sharing seemed like one of those line-crossing activities). Sollux congratulated himself on keeping his hands steady as he poured some across his fingers.

"Like this." The extra lubrication probably wasn't necessary. It was a bit embarrassing to feel how quickly he did open up while being at least partially watched by the other. This was tempered by the fact that Karkat was making all sorts of interesting, aroused sounds that made him feel liquid and hot anyway.

The work started by the nearly thirty minutes of quasi-engaging visual stimulation was completed in five by the simple acts of touching and listening. For a little while, he was able to just lose himself in the sensation, forgetting where he was and what exactly he was supposed to be doing.

A half-laugh brought him right back to reality, leaving him staring at Karkat. "Oh my god, you really do have two," he snickered somewhat unsteadily.

"Something like that…" Sollux huffed back. "You don't exactly have a corner market on weird mutations, you know."

"What do you mean…'something like that?' "

Somewhat annoyed with having to explain when it require real effort to string more than three words together coherently, he opted for the more visual approach. "Not exactly two, but not really one, either. Like my tongue. Or my horns." His jaw snapped shut, partially to stop himself from babbling and partially because of the rush of sensation. It was Karkat, however, who let out the breathy moan.

It was struggle to keep the movement slow from that point on. The movie was completely forgotten in favor of focusing on Karkat's unintentional display. How was he supposed to focus on anything else when the other troll kept asking for assurances, kept making those noises as he mirrored any action Sollux took. And the smell…he could smell that tart, astringent but still sweet scent that Karkat's fully aroused body was giving off, making him pant just so that he could breathe more of it in, feel it coat his throat and fill his head with the dizzying need to actually taste the source. It made him want things he hadn't wanted in sweeps and even then, hadn't wanted as badly as he wanted now.

"Sollux…" The yellowblood ground his teeth against the groan and rush of lust produced by Karkat calling his name. "Fuck, Sollux, I…I feel weird…"

"It's fine, KK," he grit back, trying hard not to cheat and use his psionics on himself. "Just…keep breathing… Don't….don't fight it…"

Karkat kept moaning his name, though, like it was the only tangible thing he could hang on to anymore. Sollux bit his lip hard enough to draw blood so that he didn't do the same. So close… He was so close, and that had his mind automatically filling the gaps in reality with fantasy.

He grabbed the bucket almost too late, shuddering and gasping as his own genetic material spilled, taking with it all of Sollux's thought for a few glorious minutes of silence within his own think-pan. His muscles relaxed, letting him sink into the solid comfort of the couch as the contented ache spread slowly through his limbs. His pulse slowed with his breathing, leaving him within the cozy confines of simply existing, warm and comfortable as he rarely was in the waking world. When he was touched, he reached out on instinct to touch back, a gesture that only served to solidify the contentment of the world.

Like always, reality came crashing back sooner than it was wanted. For a few seconds, Sollux stared at the ceiling and wondered why it wasn't his or Aradia's. About the time he remembered it was Karkat's ceiling was the moment he also realized his hand was wrapped possessively around an ankle, the owner of which made a slight sound of annoyance when he released it. He struggled his still disconnected body into an upright position to confirm what he already remembered. Karkat was still sprawled out on his side of the couch like a contented purrbeast in a warm spot, complete with said purring, looking utterly content and possibly ready to be debauched again.

The warm ache of wanting to do just that mixed with the images that had ultimately served his own release and crashed headlong into the cold, cold fear brought on by realization. Sollux nearly threw himself from the couch, stumbling to his feet and almost knocking the bucket from its spot between their legs in the process. He grabbed it without thought, stuffing it into his sylladex while the rest of him concentrated on not ending up face first into the floor during his effort to get away. He found himself in the abulation block, swearing at himself long before the thought of escape actually occurred to him. Not yet. He couldn't deal with this yet. He had to keep it together just a little longer. A little while longer and he—he needed to get the hell out of there before he did something even more stupid.

A sudden knock on the door spiked his pulse again just as he was starting to get it back down. "The fuck, Captor; you okay?"

"Yeah. Fine." Sollux kicked himself, first for sounding anything except fine and then again for not having an excuse to be in there. No, wait… "I'm taking care of the bucket, all right?"

The silence on the other side of the door seemed embarrassed, but not entirely convinced. "Right," Karkat finally muttered. "Whatever." Sollux sighed when he heard footsteps wander away and hurried to do as he said he was.

When he reemerged, cleaned up, if not still somewhat unsteady, it was to find Karkat already redressed and fussing in the nutrition block. Everything Sollux had brought was pointedly piled together off to one side. He dressed and recaptchalogued everything, firmly ignoring the unspoken message. A part of him said to just leave after that. He'd done what he'd come to do, so now it was time to cut his loses while he still had enough control to do so cleanly. He still hesitated by the kitchen, deftly ignored by the other as he worked.

"KK—"

"Yes, I feel better. Yes, I'll take better care of myself in the future. Yes, I'm still embarrassed as all hell, but no, that won't stop me next time. No, I don't need anything and yes, I'll be fine." He paused in his aggressive chopping to stare stonily at Sollux. "Anything I missed?" Not trusting his voice, Sollux shook his head. "Then I've got shit to do tonight," Karkat snapped, the hard thunk of the knife against the cutting board ending the conversation.

He hadn't exactly been thrown out the door and told not to come back, but only the truly stupid wouldn't have understood that's exactly what Karkat had done. Sollux bit his tongue and with one last nod of acknowledgement, he turned and left. The shaking started as soon as the heard the door latch catch behind him. It took several attempts to gather enough concentration in order to start flying. He blamed the wind for his blurring sigh and shortness of breath.

* * *

To be continued.


	6. Chapter 6

This representation of Aradia is dedicated to my moirail, who has 0_0 me into compliance more than once herself.

I apologize in advance for the weird formatting of pesterlogs. Please let me know if they are unreadable or confusing and I'll try something else.

EDIT 06/27: Apparently I had two (?) copies of the document I've been typing this in and uploaded the wrong copy. Minor errors in other chapters have also been fixed.

* * *

For most of the night, Sollux traveled, stopping only once to change out his possessions at his hive stem before moving on, chasing the moon across the sky. The bright light of dawn had started to catch up to him by the time he finally landed outside Aradia's hive. Through either good timing or serendipity, she was waiting when he arrived and wasted no time hurrying him inside and into a shower to help physically thaw and relax him. Afterwards, she combed her claws through his damp hair until the inner ice started to melt as well.

It started with small shudders, which gave way to hiccupping keens, then heaving sobs, and finally the mourning wail of pain that had gone too deep. Sollux broke apart, howling violence into her lap until the force of his ignored emotions threatened to truly tear him apart. Only then did Aradia start shooshing him back down, calm and patient. Once eased to a slightly less hysterical state, she forced him to drink a cup of some tea she'd made heavily laced with honey before shooing him into the recuprecoon ahead of her. Between his own exhaustion, the sopor, and whatever herbal concoction she'd poured down his throat, Sollux started drifting off within minutes. He tried to say something, to explain before passing out, but all Aradia did was press a finger to his lips and a kiss to his forehead, saying, "Tomorrow's soon enough."

Even tomorrow was going to be too soon. Sollux simply curled his moirail closer, glad for the steadying weight, and let himself sleep without ever saying a word.

It was actually three tomorrows before they had their talk. The first night, Sollux mostly slept. That worked out to both their benefits, since his unplanned arrival left Aradia with no time to readjust her own schedule. The extra rest helped the emotional wounds scab a bit more while keeping him appropriately occupied despite being alone. The second night, she pulled his ass out of the slime, coerced him into eating, and dragged him around with her as she took care of various chores around her hive and property, talking happily all the while about her life since the last time they'd spoken. On the third night, watching the stars from the hill behind her hive that mimicked the one that had been there on Alternia, she gently poked him into speaking.

After a couple false starts, he told her. The chance meeting on the street. The sudden disappearance from online. The willful use of his Vision. The fear of actually seeing the other passed out on the floor. The anger, cold against the thought of rape, yet hot when it turned out the other just wasn't taking care of himself. How sick he felt listening to Karkat scream through the pain and the fractures between them that had gone deeper and deeper each time until there was nothing except empty space. He meant to stop before admitting he'd been dumb enough to push even further after all that, but he couldn't curb his mouth. It felt too good to purge everything he'd kept locked out in order to do what needed to be done, even though it left him feeling raw and exhausted afterwards. There was no moon that night, so it was impossible to tell how long it took for words to start failing him. Aradia sat quietly through the whole thing, slowly carding her fingers through his hair as he talked and continued on for a while afterward when there were only the normal sounds of night around them.

"Are you ready to listen?" she finally asked when he'd evened out again. Sollux nodded quietly and felt her hands pull away only to then pull him close for a fierce hug. "I'm proud of you," she said softly, "and you did the right thing. No matter what else happens, I want you to remember that." Another flux of too-strong emotion made him hold back just as tightly. When he nodded because he didn't trust his voice, Aradia pulled back, holding him out at arm's length in her no-nonsense, serious business, do-I-have-your-attention gesture. "You're flushed for him. No," she admonished when he groaned. "You said you'd listen. You're flushed for him, Sollux, and frankly I'd be more surprised if you _weren't_ after everything."

"I _know_ I'm flushed for the idiot, AA. That's the problem." He sighed as he rubbed his temples. "I don't _want_ to be flushed for him. I don't want to go through this shit again, especially not when I've managed to fuck over a relationship I'm not even technically in yet. Let's face it; I'm the universe's worst matesprit and it's better if I just let that quadrant rot."

"You didn't fuck anything up," Aradia responded sternly. "Not yet, at least. You will have if you don't go back and try to do something about this, though." She titled his face back up so that they were looking at each other again. "I'm not saying this is going to be easy, or even all that pleasant the first few times. And there is the chance it won't get better. But your friendship with Karkat is one of the things that lived on when the game ended. Doesn't that alone make it worthwhile enough to fight for?"

"And that's why I know it's not going to work. He'll just laugh in my face when I say I'm red for him."

"He's already put his trust in you by letting you take care of him while he'd been sick. He's trusted you with the life of his moirail, who is otherwise completely defenseless. You're the first person he's ever been sexually associative with. How much more trust does he need to display before you feel you can trust him back?" She cupped his cheek gently. "Sollux, please, I know it's frightening. I don't blame you in the least for being scared; your heart's taken a lot of damage. If there's anyone out there who's taken as much of a beating as you have, though, it's Karkat. I think he's just as scared and confused as you are, only he doesn't have anyone else to fall back on, to tell him that what he's feeling is okay or help him sort it all out. And I don't want you to miss out on a chance for happiness just because you're afraid. We've gone through too much to let fear be the only reason we don't try." She leaned over and kissed his forehead. "Give it time. Give yourself time. And then just try."

Sollux stayed for two more nights afterwards. Then Aradia lovingly kicked him out of her hive, saying he'd procrastinated long enough. He returned to his hive stem after making the usual assortment of promises (yes, he'd contact her when he got there; yes, he'd eat something better than instant noodles and cereal; yes, he had his checklist and yes, he'd accomplish at least one thing on it every day until she said otherwise). But where coming back to his own space had always felt comforting in the past, he now looked around his sparse flat and wondered why it suddenly felt empty. And dirty. He wasn't the neatest of trolls, and considering that was an oxymoronic statement anyway really said something, but he had developed a limit to the amount of mess he could stand.

He sighed and tacked the list of chores his moirail had given him where he'd be most likely to see it regularly. And look at that, taking out the garbage was one of the things he had to accomplish. He just had to collect it first… With a half-hearted groan, Sollux grabbed a trash bag and began the process of saving his living space from the encroachment of the can empire, which had apparently annexed quite a bit of territory recently. About halfway through his task, he realized how he was thinking and smacked himself. This was why spending an extended amount of time with Aradia was a bad idea—her overactive imagination was infectious. The thought alone eased some of the tension inside him. Sollux felt absolutely disgusting by the time he finished, but the apartment looked better and he felt somewhat better for it as well. He smiled a bit as he crossed that off his list, wondering if he should tell her about the whole thing and surprise her, or say nothing and deny her the feeling of victory for getting into his head.

**-carcinoGeneticist [CG] is online-  
-carcinoGeneticist [CG] is idle-**

AA: karkat i need to speak with you

**-carcinoGeneticist [CG] has changed status to busy-**

AA: if you really wanted me to believe that you shouldnt have changed your status  
AA: this wont take long even if you are bus  
AA: please its about sollux

**-carcinoGeneticist [CG] is active-**  
CG: AND WHAT HAS THE AMAZING WONDER-TWIN MANAGED TO HILARIOUSLY TURN HIMSELF INTO THIS TIME?  
CG: THE FORM OF SENTIENT SLIME MOLD THAT'S UNDOUBTEDLY NOW COVERING HIS ROTTING CARCASS BECAUSE HE HASN'T BOTHERED MOVING IN THE LAST WEEK?

AA: O_O

CG: JUST GOOGLE IT. OR ASK DAVE. I'M NOT EXPLAINING.  
CG: IN FACT, LET'S JUST START OVER. WHAT'S WRONG WITH SOLLUX AND WHY DO YOU THINK I CARE ENOUGH TO DO ANTYHING ABOUT IT?

AA: you know that he and i are bound in moirallegiance correct?

CG: UH, YEAH. SURE. WHY NOT?

AA: as such i am very concerned for him right now  
AA: he has fallen into quite the depressive fit recently for reasons he refuses to disclose  
AA: obviously those reasons are quite important to him and i respect them  
AA: but i am worried that if he does not talk to someone sooner than later he will allow this to eat him up from the inside out

CG: WHOA. WAIT. TIME-OUT. WHAT EXACTLY ARE YOU ASKING ME TO DO?  
CG: BECAUSE I'VE GOT A MOIRAIL ALREADY WHO'S MORE THAN A HANDFUL WITHOUT TRYING TO SHOOSH-PAP DOWN ANOTHER BULGE-LICKER.  
CG: WHICH, COINCIDENTLY, WOULD BE YOUR JOB IN THE FIRST PLACE.

AA: O_O  
AA: i would never ask you to neglect your palemate nor subject mine to the advances of one so easily swayed to infidelity  
AA: O_O  
AA: what i am asking is that you simply be receptive to him  
AA: if he reaches out to you talk to him!  
AA: the subject itself doesnt matter so long as he interacts with someone

CG: AND WHAT MAKES YOU THINK HE'LL TRY TO TALK TO ME?  
CG: ALL WE USUALLY DO IS FIGHT.

AA: that is exactly why he will come to you  
AA: you make him feel even when he might not think he wants to  
AA: and any emotion is better than apathy

CG: YOU WOULD KNOW.

AA: O_O

CG: SORRY. THAT CAME OUT WRONG.

AA: O_O

CG: WHAT?

AA: O_O

CG: FOR THE LOVE OF FALLEN ALTERNIA, WHAT?

AA: O_O  
AA: you have yet to answer my question

CG: YES! YES, I'LL TALK TO HIS BONEY, BIFURCATED ASS IF HE SO DEIGNS TO GET OFF IT LONG ENOUGH TO CONTACT ME THROUGH SOME MEANINGFUL FORM OF COMMUNICATION. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? OR DO YOU NEED THE LOGS TO PROVE IT, TOO, BECAUSE THAT MIGHT BE A BIT DIFFICULT IF ALL OUR INTERACTIONS OCCUR VIA SMOKE SIGNAL. BUT I CAN BE A PRETTY RESOURCEFUL GUY.

AA: you have nothing to prove to me

CG: LIKE HELL I DON'T, BUT I'M SO GLAD WE'VE REACHED AN UNDERSTANDING.  
CG: NOW WILL YOU PLEASE QUIT STARING AT ME LIKE THAT? IT'S CREEPING ME RIGHT THE FUCK OUT.

AA: what like this?  
AA: O_O

CG: YES!

AA: sorry  
AA: thank you for your time karkat  
**-apocalypseArisen[AA] has disconnected-**

CG: SON OF A MOTHERFUCK.

**-carcinoGeneticist [CG] started trolling twinArmageddons [TA]-**

CG: HEY NOOKWHIFF. ARE YOU STILL ALIVE OVER THERE?  
CG: OR HAS ALL THE ELECTRICAL RADIATION FINALLY MUTATED YOUR THINK-PAN INTO AN AMORPHOUS SENTIENCE ALL ITS OWN THAT'S OUTGROWN THE SPACE BEHIND YOUR CRANIAL PLATES AND OOZED OUT YOUR AURAL SPONGE, LOOKING FOR A NEW PLACE TO CALL HOME.**  
**

**-twinArmageddons [TA] is idle-**

Sollux sighed, staring at the scroll of gray text before him. Since he'd returned from Aradia's hive a week ago, he'd been trying to get his courage up enough to contact Karkat. The results ended with him logging in to Trollian and not doing much else. He deluded himself into thinking that the other had blocked him when he was not immediately pinged for his extended absence while he'd been with his moirail. Apparently that had not been the case—Karkat had just been slow in noticing his return. There was only one reason he'd be contacted now and with such vehemence. Sollux knew Karkat's two most precious secrets—where he lived and who he lived with. Of course the other troll would want some sort of security against that, even though the thought of using said info to harm the red blood made him nauseous.

CG: SOLLUX, WE BOTH KNOW THAT YOU CAN'T BREATHE WITHOUT SOME SORT OF COMPUTING DEVICE IN YOUR HAND, SO QUIT BEING A DOUCHEWHISTLE AND ANSWER ME.

**-twinArmageddons [TA] is idle-**

But instead of owning up to the inevitable and giving that needed assurance of safety, Sollux had spent the last three days ignoring the angry little chime that proclaimed he had a new message.

CG: I SWEAR TO TAINTCHAFFING FUCK, IF YOU ARE IGNORING ME FOR ANY REASON OTHER THAN IMMINENT DANGER OR DEATH, I'LL GLADLY PUT YOU IN BOTH.

**-twinArmageddons [TA] is idle-**

The problem that had stopped him from trolling the other in the first place kept his fingers on his keyboard now: he didn't know what to say. Or rather, there was too much to say. Each time he tried to express any one thought, it was cut off and became tangled with another and then another until it was all such an incoherent mess in his mind that he ended up thinking about nothing at all. He was literally frozen with indecision and half sick with the knowledge that this could be their last conversation. Granted, things couldn't really end any worse than they had when he'd been kicked out of his friend's hive, but even this one-sided argument was better than being completely erased. Considering the level of insults being hurled at him, it probably didn't matter what he said anymore. He was going to get read the riot act regardless.

CG: DAMN IT, SOLLUX, PLEASE?  
CG: I KNOW THINGS ARE REALLY FUCKED UP BETWEEN US RIGHT NOW AND THAT I'M PROBABLY THE LAST TROLL YOU'LL EVER WANT TO TALK TO AGAIN, BUT EVEN IF IT'S JUST TO TELL ME TO FUCK OFF, RESPOND.  
CG: I'M LITERALLY BEGGING HERE.  
CG: PLEASE SAY SOMETHING.

Insults, Sollux could handle. He'd never been very good about ignoring Karkat when he started begging, though. There was something about the tone of the text that always left the impression the other was half a step away from crying. And the influx of self-hate that came next wasn't anything he was prepared to deal with either. All conversations had to start somewhere. He took a deep breath and held it as he typed, still hesitating before finally slapping himself mentally and hitting the enter key with his eyes closed.

TA: hey kk

The immediate chime back seemed even angrier than normal.

CG: ABOUT FUCKING TIME, ASSHOLE.  
CG: ARE YOU ACTUALLY ALL RIGHT OR DO I NEED TO START CLEARING MY SCHEDULE FOR A CORPSE PARTY?

Sollux sighed as irritation flooded through him, foreign and familiar. The only reason he was holding his shit together at all was by refusing to feel much of anything. As usual, Karkat broke that barrier down without even a token struggle. Not to mention the fact death was not a subject he liked talking about in general anymore.

TA: ii told you before that p2iioniic2 don't leave corp2e2 they leave crater2 iif they don't burn out fiir2t.

CG: PROBABLY JUST AS WELL. WHO THE HELL WANTS A BUNCH OF MOUTH-BREATHING BULGE HUMPERS STARING AT THEIR DEAD BODY AND PRETENDING THEY EVER GAVE A FUCK TO START WITH?

TA: everyone ha2 theiir own mourniing practiice.  
TA: maybe 2tariing at a body make2 the realiity ea2iier two accept.

CG: …  
CG: CAN WE CHANGE THE TOPIC?

TA: you brought iit up iin the fiir2t place.

CG: YEAH, I KNOW. AND NOW I WANT TO FUCKING CHANGE IT.  
CG: SHIT… THIS ISN'T WORKING OUT LIKE I THOUGHT IT WOULD.

TA: then quiit wanderiing around the 2hrub and ju2t 2ay what you want two 2ay

**-carcinoGeneticist [CG] is idle-**

With every minute that passed, Sollux felt his vain hope die a little more, crumbling away in his chest to leave a hollow, cold space behind. Who the hell was he kidding anyway? Despite assurances to the contrary, he was an awful candidate for matesprit to anyone. He was a pretty shitty friend, too, for letting this drag out just because he didn't want to accept reality. The small message at the bottom of the screen that indicated the other was typing kept flashing on and off with slowly lengthening periods of zero activity. Karkat was the master of words. Granted, sometimes that ability got away from him because he didn't always think things through, but it had never stopped him from simply bullying his way to a point while making the necessary apologies shortly thereafter. Anything that could be taking this long for him to articulate couldn't possibly be good.

He had just gotten to the point where he couldn't take it anymore, ready to swear in blood if need be that Karkat had nothing to fear from him just so that he could log off and go find out if it was possible to truly drown in sopor slime, when once again he was beaten to the punch. Sollux stared at the single line, unsure if he wanted to laugh or cry. Seriously? That's what had taken so long to get out?

CG: ARE WE STILL FRIENDS?

He couldn't stamp out the flutter that went through him as those ritualized words sunk into his pan, warm, reassuring, and solid. Nor could he manage to take them at face value.

TA: ii dont know are we?  
TA: we can iif you want two be.

CG: WHAT KIND OF NEURON LACKING RESPONSE IS THAT?  
CG: I WOULDN'T HAVE ASKED IF I DIDN'T WANT TO BE.

TA: then yeah dumba22 were 2tiill friiend2.

CG: GOOD.  
CG: IN THAT CASE, CHECK THE PILE OF SMUT YOU DECIDED TO SHARE WITH THE WORLD. I'M MISSING A COUPLE MOVIES OF MY OWN AND I WANT THEM BACK.

The laughter burbled up even as he wiped the tears from his cheeks. He wasn't sure exactly what he was feeling at the moment, only that it was better than cold. The ache was still there and probably would be until he got rejected properly. For the moment, however, he let himself bask in the comfort of familiarity as he and Karkat began arguing back and forth over who was really at fault for the missing movies. It was stupid, and hesitant, and awkward sometimes, but by the time the sun was rising, at the very least, Sollux knew he was going to get his friend back.

* * *

To be continued.


	7. Chapter 7

Aradia was right; it wasn't easy for a long time. It took a whole perigree for their online conversations to stop stalling out whenever one of them accidentally tripped over the unspoken line that separated acceptable banter from the dangerous territory that was memory. Another half perigree became swallowed by learning how to actually talk again via headsets when they started gaming together again. There was a lot of yelling, apologizing, and tense silences that made Sollux want to alternately kill his friend or himself, depending upon which course seemed more likely to resolve the issue.

One night, quite a while later, he got the courage up to revisit Karkat's hive. It was under the guise of returning the movies that had accidentally ended up in Sollux's possession (which he still maintained was clearly not his fault in the least). There was the same shocked hesitancy that had greeted him every other night he'd travelled there, but Karkat had let him in all the same. After a bit of floundering, they managed to wile away most of the night with a couple movies and several arguments about both. The next perigree, Sollux conjured up another reason to travel out, then another for the perigree after that. This went on for a handful of times before he stopped coming up with excuses all together and simply showed up. Karkat never did stop acting surprised whenever Sollux knocked on his front door even though he was always granted entry.

In public, Sollux had it together. In private, or to Aradia, he was a mess. Sometimes he was able to convince himself his flushcrush had been a product of stress and guilt, that what he felt was the product of some sort of psychological breakdown because he'd become entangled in his friend's circumstances and nothing more. Other times, he came dangerously close to letting his pity overwhelm good judgment because he wanted so badly to take away the defeated air the other always carried, especially on the days when Gamzee was worse than normal. The little affections he earned throughout each night could leave him contented as often as it dashed all hope for anything more. Most days, he could bear the pain. There were still a lot of days he couldn't, left a barely put together wreck in Aradia's lap.

The night it finally all came to a head, Sollux had been mid-slide into a depressive cycle anyway. Until this point, he'd managed to keep it under control during his interactions with Karkat—he knew he had a burn-it-all tendency when caught in the grips of self-hate and destructive mental feedback. Half the battle always came down to distracting himself sufficiently that he _couldn't_ over-think whatever form his inadequacy decided to masquerade about as this time. The other half was keeping himself moving. Though calling off their interactive night might have been the smarter move, Sollux followed through with the hope that it would be a preventative measure.

He really should have known better. The oh-so-familiar sting of Karkat's shocked look went quite a bit deeper than it normally did, leaving their usual argument over movie choice sharp and vitriolic. Karkat still won the way he always did, saying that because it was his hive and his electronics, it was also his decision. Sollux managed to swallow an unkind retort about how it would never be someone else's turn because he never went anywhere. He didn't manage to stifle the growl, doing so with enough teeth that he'd been snarled at in return. From there, it was a steady descent into the pan-rotting tedium of romcom plot development, because he was just desperate enough to actually pay attention. That proved to be his undoing. The story centered around a one girl and two guys, one of which filled the lovelorn childhood friend trope while the other was more plot device than a character. It was a human movie, too, which meant that the emotional smearing left everyone confused about what they were supposed to be feeling. That, of course, was what facilitated the drama, complete with poorly concealed jealousy, insubstantial suspicion, unintelligible fighting, but never any breaking up and moving on. Sollux managed to grit his teeth through it all until Plot Device Guy ended up in an accident. Then he snapped.

Karkat yelped as flashes of red and blue disrupted the dvd player and television, turning both off as static screeched through the stereo. "What the fuck is your malfunction tonight, Captor?" he hissed, kicking Sollux's leg in retaliation. "I was watching that!"

"There's nothing to see," Sollux shot back. "All three of them are stupid; her for thinking her moirail would stop caring just because she did, the hipster asswipe for never being honest about his intentions in the first place, and the freak of nature, who was fucking happier missing half his pan, for expecting pity when he'd already lost what made him pitiful in the first place!"

Red eyes narrowed down, the only movement Karkat made for a long minute as he watched Sollux carefully for any further hostility. When he considered his odds of survival good, he opened his mouth.

"We're not talking about the movie, are we?"

Sollux snapped his mouth shut as he tried to recall everything he had just said. It was too late to take any of it back anyway. Couldn't brush it off, either, because he was obviously distressed, breathing hard and reflexively clenching his hands while sparks flitted around his knuckles. The gaping hole in his chest became a physical malady, making it hard to breathe as his mind once more made a point to drag up all the interconnected failures and fears. It felt like the already unstable ground under him had shifted so that he now could see exactly how far he had to fall. He kept trying to pinwheel back even as he tilted too far forward in a sick, masochistic ploy to see exactly how badly he could hurt himself. If he had any hope at all of saving himself, he needed to abscond with as much grace as he could. Now.

"No, I'm not, and I'm sorry. I should have cancelled—"

"And you didn't," Karkat interrupted, implacable as ever. "You're here now and you obviously need to get some shit off the knobs you call shoulders, so sit the fuck down and get rid of it." When Sollux wavered, he added, "You'll fry long before you make it to Aradia's at this hour. Obviously talking to her didn't make any difference in how you feel anyway. Why bother killing yourself for a solution that doesn't work?"

Sollux hesitated a moment longer, then slowly relaxed back into the couch. He wanted to hurt; might as well make the pain worth the time. "AA doesn't know about this," he sighed. "She suspects, but I never came out and told her. I think a part of her doesn't want to be sympathetic to the heart that replaced her. Or maybe she'd feel obligated to do something in return on my behalf. I don't know. Maybe I'm just over-thinking shit again.

"So here's the world destroying secret as to why FF and I never got back together—Mituna Captor." He smiled self-depreciatingly as Karkat blinked at him. "Yeah, talk about out of nowhere."

"Mituna?" the other echoed, shifting to a more active listening position. "I thought it was Eridan."

"Everyone thinks it's ED, which suits him just fine because then he can complain about how bad he has it. And yeah, he's a part of it because thanks to the whole sprite thing, I now enjoy the insanity of understanding why he's such an insufferable asscactus, but he's a much lesser part in all this than he likes to thinks he is. No, it was seeing MT and LT in the dream bubbles, so to speak. The way they interacted told me something wasn't right with how FF and I were. I mean, he committed psionic suicide, fucked his think-pan up so badly that even now—healed—he's still not completely there, and she's always been there, _is_ still there. Sweeps later, the two of them are still caught in first flush bliss. It's seriously disgusting."

He paused and found himself pulling at his horns. For as stupid as it all sounded in his head, it was six times worse out loud. "FF's talked to me three times since the meteor; twice while we were in the bubbles, then again when we woke up. Every single time started off with her missing the psionics. Like that was the only part of me that was worth anything, which to a Tyrian-blood, I guess is true. Then she'd get mad at me because I wasn't willing to let her 'fix' anything. I didn't want my powers or my sight back; I was happy and she didn't know what to do with it, so she did nothing. AA's the one who mostly made sure I didn't manage to perma-kill myself on accident. FF helped a little bit, but we were mostly strangers.

"So when she said she was confused about everything that had happened and wanted time to adjust, I didn't argue. I was pretty fucked up too, trying to deal with all the ways I'd been dead, alive, and somewhere in between. I had to relearn how to control my powers at the least before it was even safe to be around me and that took a while. Apparently the whole reach-around-apology-sprite-splodey escapade was enough to get her to forgive ED. That pretty much sealed the deal—we never tried again."

"Considering she wasn't much of a moirail, I'm not surprised she's a bad matesprit, too. It was a completely unhealthy relationship; you were both right to walk away from it," Karkat conceded, then hesitated a moment. "What surprises me is you didn't go back to Aradia."

"AA?" Sollux shook his head and welcomed the familiar blossom of guilt. "If things had gone different the first time…maybe. We called ourselves matesprits, but we were also how old? What the fuck did we actually know about quadrants and being mates? It's stupid how pale we were for each other, even back then. We could have tried in the dream bubbles, but it never really came up. We were both just happy the other was there." He pressed at the emotional wound, searching for the infection he knew was still there. He found it with another lancing shot of pain. "At least I'm happy she's there. Considering I'm the reason she died in the first place, then spent all that time being EQ's smoochbot, she could have told me to go to hell or something."

"I thought we agreed that wasn't your fault," Karkat interrupted.

"Agreeing, believing, and being blamed are completely separate subjects, KK. We can agree, but I still believe, and she can still blame, regardless of whatever really happened. Considering what _did_ happen, not only is moirallegiance more than I could have hoped for, it's more than I deserve. Especially after practically parading FF in front of her on the meteor."

"Are you shitting me? She'd been dead for sweeps by that point—you were allowed to move on. Not to mention how fucked up Equius managed to make his wiring, trying to program in flushed feelings just because he's got a boner for lowbloods. And if I recall correctly, which I fucking do, she chose _you_ to say goodbye to before short-circuiting anyway. How the fuck can you sit there and tell me that means she hates your slimy entrails? You cried like a goddamn wiggler in public, for fuck's sake; you _know_ better. Quit listening to the bullshit side of your brain."

"I _know_ I'm the one responsible for two dead mates before reaching concupiscent age," Sollux snapped. "I know my powers screwed me over in both cases. Listening to the 'bullshit part of my brain' is the only reason I haven't made the same mistake a third time! How many times do I have to fuck up before I stop expecting a different result?"

"The only thing that's fucked up is how adamant you are about blaming your freak light show for shit you can't control! We were kids! Our shit was wrecked long before we even understood how messed up it could get. And yeah, sometimes our best still wasn't good enough, but we got it done. We're still here, motherfucker, and that means it's not over yet."

"Says the asshole who nearly died because he wouldn't take care of himself!"

"Says the prick who used his all-damning powers to save that asshole!"

"Because I love you, you son of a slug eater!" Sollux snarled as his claws sunk into Karkat's shirt, physically yanking the other towards him. "I am hopelessly, stupidly flushed for you and you have no idea what it's like to be absolutely fucking powerless when you can burn cities to the ground with just a few thoughts! To try and stave off inevitability, to know what's coming and then find out that _your mere presence_ was the reason it was even possible in the first place." The anger that had started the outburst crumbled away no matter how he tried to hold on to it. Because the anger was safe; he could deal with being angry, but not hurt. He was so tired of hurting… "That's why it's always been my fault and I can't do it again, KK. I can't save you just to kill you later and I'm sorry, I've been trying to let it go, but I can't…" He let go to bury his face in his hands, unwilling to let the subversive tears in his eyes be seen. "I can't stop feeling like this… I'm sorry…"

When Karkat finally moved, Sollux expected it to be away. He flinched a bit when a weapon calloused hand touched his wet cheek. "Last time I checked, asshole," the other troll said evenly, "_I_ was the one who got to decide what I needed from a mate. And for the record, being saved was never on that list, even if I needed it." Then he sighed in aggravation. "Fuck, I don't whether to slap you or kiss you, you pathetic moron. I swear to whatever omniscient asshole put us here, only you can make someone pity you while wanting to strangle you at the same time.

"Don't look at me like that," he scowled when Sollux lifted his head to stare, a slight dusting of red on his face as he suddenly started looking elsewhere. "Do I really have to spell this out for your inattentive ass? I like you, too, dipshit. I have for…for a long time, okay? Maybe not completely red, but not really pale either, and God knows how many times I waxed black whenever you decided to ride the douche-train into town. But first you were with Aradia, then you hooked up with Feferi, and the only thing I ever seemed good at was picking up the pieces instead of pushing you to be better. Then this happened." He gestured to the hive. "Gamzee became the only thing I could care about."

The words were registering, but Sollux wasn't quite ready to feel their impact yet. "Then why do you look so damned shocked every time I show up?"

"Because I kept expecting you to not come back. Everyone else moved on with their lives—even you. I couldn't ask for help and I couldn't move on until he…something." Karkat raked a hand through his hair before he punched Sollux's shoulder. "But you kept coming back and I liked it and I didn't want to like it. Not to mention how you keep running hot and cold every time we talked, so I couldn't figure out if you liked spending time with me or just figured I couldn't take care of myself."

"I do like coming out here," Sollux said softly, letting that glorious painful hope flourish. "I can't live in a place like this, there isn't enough distraction, but I like visiting. It's a nice change of pace." His blood pusher thumped hard as he took the next step forward. "KK, this is the point where you usually ask if we're still friends. I don't want to be just your friend, though. I want to be your mate, too. Considering my stellar track record in that department, I can't blame you for turning me down. But I need that formal dismissal if you're not interested."

"Are you actually _asking_ me, nook-sniffer, because I haven't heard the right words yet."

A weak smile pulled at Sollux's lips. Well, he'd asked for this, hadn't he? "Karkat Vantas, night does not end nor start without thoughts of you. Say the same of me. Let me be the one who fills your heart. Take me as your matesprit."

Karkat snorted. "Holy shit, that sounds awful with your lisp."

"Goddamn it, KK—"

"No promises," he continued as if he hadn't been interrupted. "This goes slow, and Gamzee never comes into it, got it?" Sollux nodded mutely, not quite daring to breathe. "Then I say the day cannot pass without remembrance of you and the night alone is not long enough to be in your company. I say this of Solluxander Captor. I will be the one to fill your heart. I will have you as my matesprit."

A part of him wanted to ask, to make sure this wasn't a tease, but he already knew it wasn't. Formal declarations were not things anyone joked about for any reason. The protocol had been exact—there was no doubt that Karkat had accepted him as a mate even if the truth of that didn't feel absolute yet. What really settled the idea that this was happening was the soft look Karkat gave him; slightly embarrassed, slightly vulnerable, but with clear pity in his gaze. Sollux stared so long that the other shifted self-consciously. "Say something, dumbass," he muttered.

"You know, if this was one of your shitty romcoms, you'd have kissed me already."

"Don't push it." Karkat still leaned in and shyly nuzzled their cheeks together, purring in a rough, disjointed manner, like he wasn't used to making the sound. It was wrong how right that felt. The clenching in Sollux's chest slowly released as he started purring in response. He wasn't quite willing to give into elation yet, but it was hard to deny its existence as well. It was still too terribly fragile, all of it, to acknowledge that maybe this time, something good had come about. All he could do was remember that he'd already changed Karkat's circumstances successfully once and repeat the mantra that he would not fuck this up this time.

* * *

To be concluded.


	8. Chapter 8

This chapter has been edited for content. The full version is posted on AO3 and AFF under the author name Grimpreaperchibi.

* * *

After a couple fights that nearly terminated their newly established matespritship, they managed to reach a compromise that suited Karkat's paranoia, stalled Sollux's trepidation, and soothed the instinctive need all mates felt to protect one another. Since he was the one able to come and go the most freely, Sollux would alternate weeks, spending one with Karkat and the next at his own hivestem. He was allowed to fly in, but return trips were done via train to allow Karkat to accompany him. The redblood would then spend a full cycle in the city before returning to his hive for the remainder of the week. Since Gamzee's safety depended upon secrecy, they chose not to make their declaration public knowledge. (Aradia made the connection without having to be told, something Karkat had been very irate about until she pointed out she'd known long before either of them seemed to and promised to keep it to herself.) For the times when Karkat was away, they synced the equipment monitoring the comatose purpleblood to Karkat's phone, allowing him to check in whenever he pleased. For Sollux's own piece of mind, the front door was also replaced and a security system was installed.

Even though they had gone about it in a spectacularly backwards fashion—declaring interest, committing, and then courting—there was something soothing about fumbling through it all together. The limitations were only awkward and chaffing until the whole act became routine, and there were definitely enough perks to keep them going even when it seemed smarter to stop. Such as being greeted with a kiss instead of a stare when Sollux showed up, or the simple joy of being able to hold Karkat close. And, of course, those tentative steps towards all the other things that divided flushed feelings from pale ones. Despite being primed for more, things remained slow and easy, helpfully restricted by Karkat's inexperience and Sollux's reluctance to push. All they did for several perigrees was innocent touching; holding hands, couch cuddling, leaning against each other even as they went through separate routines. That lasted until the night, mid-romcom, Karkat purposefully shifted so that he was straddling Sollux's lap and admitted he wanted to kiss, but wasn't sure how.

For someone who'd never managed to hold onto a flush-crush long enough to do something with it, Karkat was an amazing kisser. Not overbearing, not completely yielding, shy, yet willing to please. It was endearing that he didn't know what to do with his hands while they kissed, sometimes kneading at Sollux's shoulders, sometimes just anchored in the cloth of his shirt. The best times were when they slid through his hair, catching and holding onto his horns while they attempted to see who could shove their tongue further down the other's throat. Sollux himself kept his hands in relatively neutral territory until his think-pan clouded over with hormones. Then his fingers were quite eager to search out all the places that would make Karkat moan, trill, and keen (kneading at the base of his skull, skimming over his grubscars, and clawing up or down his spine respectively). Almost every night after that ended the same way, one mate in the other's lap, first just kissing, then touching, then losing clothes and marking skin. Teeth never got further than necklines. The only thing either of them ever lost was a shirt. Any sort of physical release was found alone. It didn't matter to Sollux because he already had more than he could have hoped for.

In the half sweep since his awkward confession of flushed feelings and the handful of perigrees less of being something close to intimate, Sollux's resistance had eroded away under the affection and reassurance. Or maybe subverted was a better term. In the brightest hours of the day, when insomnia ran rampant in conjuncture with a downswing, he was still utterly terrified of adding another name to his list of failures. Even when he was at his happiest, the thought of _what will I do when this ends?_ slunk around the back of his mind. The steady amount of affirmation on Karkat's behalf made those thoughts easier and easier to ignore, though he still lived in fear of wanting more and ruining what he already had. Gradually, however, that proved to not be the case. The steady increase of attention stalled out, as Karkat shied away from anything more. Then he realized he didn't want his mate to leave his lap. He didn't want to make the awkward trip to the abulation trap to find release alone. Somehow, all he really felt was an insistent ache, like he was craving something. He wasn't afraid, he wasn't even all that confused; there was simply a step he needed to make so that things could once again move forward. A step that for the life of him, he couldn't identify, so he couldn't quell the feeling.

His brain finally figured out what his body had been trying to tell him for a least two perigrees when Karkat released a stuttering groan as he moved to break that night's make-out session. The sound, coupled with the tart taste lingering on his tongue and the hot press of another body against his focused Sollux's thoughts down so quickly on that elusive answer, he felt dizzy despite his newfound clarity.

"Fill a bucket with me?" he asked, breathless. He almost regretted asking when Karkat pulled further away to look at him, but the words spilled out now that they had been given voice, forcing him to forge on instead. "You can take me first if it would make you feel better. Or I can do everything; whichever you want. Please, just… Don't make me finish alone. You don't even have to touch me, just stay. Please, stay…" He whined into the mouth suddenly attached to his, though if it was because of the heavy tongue that forced its way in as well or the hard grind of one partially clothed bulge against another was uncertain. Somewhere between fingering grubscars and sucking at one another's necks, their pants had been opened to relieve some of the pressure caused by increasingly interested bulges. His hands slipped possessively across his mate's sides in response, then up across the nicely muscled back, dragging his claws all the while. Karkat moaned in response, pressing even closer.

"KK…" Sollux panted when his lips where his own again, still waiting for an answer.

"Shoosh. You're babbling." Karkat kissed him with maddening intensity once more before pulling back competely. This time, he got to his wobbling legs and offered Sollux a hand up. The hand was stared at without comprehension. "My first pailing experience isn't going to be on a goddamn couch," was the Karkat-being-patient explanation. "And I'm _not_ ruining this one with genetic material; I just finished paying for it."

Oh. Sollux took the proffered help and was pulled to his equally unsteady feet. Instead of releasing his hold, Karkat shifted it, entwining their fingers tightly before starting for the stairs. It was nearly impossible to tell since their make-out session had left them both flushed, but it seemed like Karkat's had gotten a touch darker for the action. A rush of warm, possessive pity shot through Sollux as he trailed behind his mate, giddily high on hormones as much as he was on sheer elation. It made him feel brave and reckless, enough that he didn't even take a cursory glance at the room he was lead to. He simply pushed the other against the nearby wall and started kissing him again.

There was a startled noise from Karkat, but it turned pleased when devoured by the kiss. His mouth opened easily to Sollux's invading tongue, fought back, invaded in turn as his arms twined around the other's neck, one hand buried into hair while the second kneaded down between shoulder blades. Every time Karkat's claws dragged up his spine, Sollux moaned and returned the gesture, following the muscled contours of Karkat's core until his fingers caught on the last bit of cloth separating them, eliciting a shiver that did all sorts of wonderful things to the possessive side of his nature. He was only half aware he was growling until it was challenged by another.

With the wall acting as leverage, Karkat pushed back, using his strength to not only move them further into the room, but also picking Sollux up just enough that he couldn't set his feet against the movement. His back hit something with a confused huff. It was soft, and almost flat, and that was as far as the assessment went before Karkat crawled over the top of him. Another quick kiss was stolen before teeth settled on Sollux's throat. His head tipped back with a heated noise, back arching slightly to further display the vulnerable spot. Karkat might have lacked an honest set of fangs, but his teeth were still sharp enough to pose a real threat. Having them resting over the already fluttering pulse point, digging in just hard enough to prove how easy it would be to puncture and rip, made Sollux trill sharply. That was all it took to make him stop thinking for the first time, one tension within him unraveling while another tightened further.

Karkat moaned in return, replacing teeth with a couple rough drags of his tongue. "Oh holy fuck," he gasped, clearly overwhelmed with a mixture of humour, awe, and want. "You don't even have you _pants_ off yet and you…"

Sollux tried to glare. When said glare failed to stop his mate's pleased-turning-manic snickering, he leaned up and started darkening one of the numerous bruises already collaring Karkat's neck. The laughing turned into a hitching moan. Karkat threw his head back even as a hand shot up to hold Sollux to that spot. In the space of another breath, the other troll was trilling himself. It took nothing to flip their positions, never letting up the bruising pressure while they moved. Claws trailed down a heaving chest and stomach before finally slipping under the waistband of Karkat's boxers. One good squeeze was all it took for Karkat to go rigid and quiet.

Watching his mate come down from his high was fascinating. The hard lines that defined him and his space blurred as relaxing muscle melted. Harsh breaths evened out into a still-rough purr, his kiss-swollen lips ever so slightly turned up in a contented smile. It was possible to watch awareness wash over him, how his mind started to reconnect with higher thought processes, and when his eyes finally opened to look back, the bright red irises damn near glowed. For as hot as Karkat had been the first time Sollux had seen him in cool-down, before the quadrant bullshit and tiresome feelings had confused the issue of him helping a friend, this was even more so. The knowledge that it was completely his fault his mate looked like that had him grinning in smug satisfaction.

The attention immediately had Karkat blushing and defensive…as soon as he was aware enough to recognize it. His cheeks puffed out in indignation. "What the fuck are you grinning at, nook-licker? Are you just going to stare at me with that dumbass look your face all night or are you actually going to do something?"

Even if he hadn't wanted a taste from the source of the scent that had been driving him crazy long before his fingers had become a sticky mess as well, Sollux probably would have used the insult for that purpose anyway. That, and the other totally deserved to squirm a bit for the comment about pants still being on. His grin only got wider as he leaned in. "Only if you let go of my hand first."

"Let…" Confusion turned to flat out embarrassment in a heartbeat when Sollux wiggled his fingers. There was a furtive attempt to shift his hips away, but all Karkat really accomplished was rubbing himself harder against the hand doing nothing to help the process. In fact, Sollux made it a point to shift his grip. The response was something breathy and vaguely insulting as Karkat struggled to move both closer and further away. His hands kneaded their way to Sollux's shoulders, where they clung like he was the last stable object in the universe. Pleasure finally won out over awkwardness. Again, Sollux found himself watching in enthrallment as Karkat moved, sighed, and let the rush build once more.

He could have brought his matesprit to his second plateau just by touching and been perfectly happy. Said matesprit had other ideas. There was a frustrated sound followed by Karkat pushing at him after only a handful of minutes. "Clothes off," he snarled, already trying to pull the offending material from Sollux's hips. A little wiggling, some inadvertent scratching, lots of swearing, the near miss of an elbow into a nose and a burst of psionics later, clothes were a forgotten memory. Sollux was pulled into another round of kissing that broke abruptly with a shudder when Karkat started touched him in return.

It didn't matter that it was fumbling or slightly awkward. The kissing quickly degraded into nipping at lips, if not blatantly just panting into one another's mouths. Sollux's head was absolutely swimming with the smell of his mate, overpowering and demanding now that there was nothing hindering it. He could taste it on the tongue that would every so often find its way into his mouth to swipe at his teeth. It came with a burst of salt when he returned the gesture. Heat flashed through his system in response to the way Karkat cried out, pressing his face into Sollux's chest as claws scratched down his spine. His back arched with a cut-off cry in response, ensuring it wasn't just sweat running down his thighs anymore.

The minor release cleared up his thoughts just enough to let him decide he wouldn't be sidetracked again. Sollux kissed his mate back into the platform they were on before making a run down the length of his body. Karkat made a confused noise when his hand was pulled free. He struggled upright, dazed, eyes unfocused, and beautifully flushed when Sollux moved to a better position and thus almost completely out of reach, whining softly in distress.

"No, shh…" Sollux stretched until he could kiss the other again, purring loudly until Karkat relaxed. "I'm not going anywhere," he reassured, voice quiet as he continued pressing kisses to the rest of his mate's face and throat. "I just… Let me do this…it'll feel good… Let me make you feel good, KK…"

The body under his shivered and eventually, Karkat nodded. But the hands now kneading out nervous tension in Sollux's hair barely slowed. The yellowblood cursed himself eight kinds of an idiot—he'd gone too fast and the other hadn't transitioned with him. Now the astringent-sweet smell had a sour edge to it, something that was starting to push the wrong buttons regardless of the ache sitting low in his belly. It did, however, give him a better idea on how to soothe his mate and get the right idea across.

"KK," he breathed, nuzzling their cheeks together. "KK, watch." He leaned back and waited just long enough to see Karkat open his eyes. Then Sollux brought his hand up and deliberately licked at it. Bright red eyes instantly widened. Karakt's jaw went slack when the two halves of a bifurcated tongue showed their dexterity by wrapping around one of the digits. What finally smothered the sharp smell of fear with renewed arousal was the moan Sollux made as he flicked his tongue suggestively between two fingers.

This time when he made his move, he paid more attention. He lavished affection on Karkat's collarbones and sternum and found a couple other spots where the bruising pressure of lips and a tongue were appreciated. He also discovered that several places that were ticklish to touch were equally sensitive to kisses. Mutliple times, he could taste himself on his mate's skin and failed to care because it only made Karkat taste better to him. When he finally settled, Sollux had decided on how to make up for scaring his mate. The risk was what made his idea exciting, but he'd already screwed this up once. There was no need for a second performance. Several good, full-length strokes gave him the placement for his hand. He tightened his grip, smirked at his mate's questioning look, then leaned forward.

The sound Karkat made had Sollux curling _his_ toes in pleasure. Too vocal to be a growl, yet edged with a rough rumble that kept it from being a moan, either. The thought power required to figure it out (and how to make it again) was already designated for making sure sharp teeth didn't injure the softest part of a troll's body. It was a little extreme for first timers, but there was zero tension in Karkat, and that made Sollux brave.

As it became harder to keep a secure grip, the thought of using his psionics came and went. Yes, it would be easier to hold on, not to mention it would free both of his hands to pursue other things, but Sollux wanted to be the one touching his mate. Even if the energy did come from him, it wasn't the same. Maybe another time, if Karkat asked for it, or they flipped to black. So he finally conceded when his grip threatened to completely give way, shifting so that he could lick a path down to his ultimate goal.

The rumbling moan came back. Hands wrapped around the larger set of his twined horns and tugged him closer. Then Sollux promptly forgot how to think all together. Over and over again, regardless of the ache spreading through his jaw, or the lightheadedness that meant he wasn't getting enough air. The entire world focused down to the sole tasks of eliciting those hiccupping keens. He felt claws rake through his hair before he was forcefully pulled up and away. He was tempted to dive back down as soon as the grip slackened, but Karkat had already plateaued out again, making what had been pleasurable before too much to handle now. Sollux stroked a trembling thigh as he waited through the aftershocks. Later, he would be concerned about how quickly, and completely, he'd been overwhelmed by his mate's scent. Right now, however, Sollux firmly didn't care about anything that wasn't Karkat. He was beyond such concerns, or rational thought, and the fear either condition could bring. All that mattered was that when he growled this time, Karkat trilled his acceptance back.

That sound overfilled something. Sollux could feel it in his chest, burning as it moved through his veins like the psionic energy when it ran along his nerves. It connected every part of him together, from the tips of his horns to the bottoms of his feet. And when he moved, it connected him to Karkat. The first touch was electric, making them both arch and moan. They couldn't even manage to stay still long enough after that for the sharp edge to wear off. It steadily made the ache inside Sollux worse until it felt like something would break if it wasn't eased. This time, the minor release didn't help anything, only emphasized how empty he felt, a condition he apparently didn't suffer with alone.

There was no memory of moving. In one instance, Sollux was leaning over Karkat, losing what was left of his thought processes as their movements picked up speed. The next, he was sitting upright with his matesprit in his lap. It was everything and nothing like what Sollux had thought it would feel like—the pressure, the heat. How every part of him screamed to move while instinct itself kept him still. They stayed like that for what felt like a small eternity. And then finally, _finally_, the action was reciprocated. He clung tightly to Karkat, warbling obscenely as the ache there was fulfilled and enflamed.

The obnoxious part of his mind noted that maybe calling it a flush was more practical than philosophical. He and Karkat were pressed together in every way possible: forehead to forehead, chest to chest, hip to hip, holding each other as tight as they could in an attempt to become even more integrated than they were. Then it kindly disappeared, allowing him to enjoy the spike of white pleasure that shot through him. Sollux moaned thickly, automatically moving to try and feel it again. This made him shift to a similar effect. After that, it was just need and words that became mantras.

Teeth found Soullx's shoulder. The unexpected pain brought Sollux to his own screaming end. Then the searing heat was gone, leaving only embers behind as they collapsed against the other. They nuzzled and chirped at one another through the afterglow, returning to the soft kisses that had started the whole affair, petting damp skin and brushing aside limp hair while reality reordered itself around them. Karkat was the one to sigh and stretch first, breaking the sweat-induced suction between them. Sollux, however, was the one who asked the important question.

"Was one of us smart enough to actually bring a bucket?"

"Why would either of us be _that_ smart? Karkat replied tiredly. "There's one buried in the closet, actually. Not that it does us much good there, but it does exist."

The psionics were far more energetic than Sollux felt like being. The first attempt nearly ripped the closet doors out of their tracks. When he tried to scale them back, the doors didn't move at all. After several iterations of too much or too little, he had to give in and physically guide the power in the manner he wanted. His hand shook like crazy as he pushed objects around until he finally came across what he was looking for. He nearly sent it though a wall when Karkat, apparently bored with waiting, started licking at the actual bite he'd left earlier. A little shifting got the bucket wedged into a position where it wouldn't easily tip. Karkat kept licking at the wound he'd made and Sollux tucked his face into his mate's neck in return, pressing random kisses to the skin there. With a deep breath and a shuddering sigh, their bodies relaxed.

Higher thought function returned almost as quickly, but the warm exhaustion left behind had them stretching out together rather than back on their feet. While Karkat moved their pail to the floor, Sollux looked over his new scar-in-waiting—deep enough to bleed, but no tearing, nothing missing. It overlapped with the scars left over from the time pain had made Karkat lash out involuntarily. It seemed appropriate that it was now augmented by an equally involuntary gesture made in a fit of pure passion. Sollux still felt the need to tease his mate about it. "Jeez, KK. You have something against my shoulder or what?"

"Only because I didn't want to screech in your aural sponge so loudly you went partially deaf, unlike some asshole I know." He nuzzled absently as he curled close, the ever-odd rumble of a purr still echoing through his chest. "…It was pretty hot to hear you scream my name like that, though. I think that's the first time you've actually called me Karkat since we met. Oh, and remind me to write some angry emails tomorrow; there's a lot of authors out there that don't have a fucking clue what it's like to have your mate's tongue shoved that far into you, let alone any other act of matesprit amative interaction."

Sollux snickered. "Is that your way of saying I was better than your books? I don't know whether to be flattered or horrified. What the fuck have you been reading?"

"God, yes, you were a thousand times better. Remember to take oxygen with you; I'd hate for you to pass out and fall off your high horse so far up." Karkat kissed him, long and soft, taking the bite out of his words. "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for you to ask. I was beginning to think you never would."

Whatever comment Sollux was going to make next was lost when that statement fully processed. "Wait, what? You were the one who stalled out. If you wanted more, why didn't you just keep going?"

"Because it a little thing called being sensitive to other's emotions." Karkat sighed as he rolled away a bit, frowning in frustration and refusing to look at Sollux. "Fucking hell… Look what it took to get you to admit you even felt flushed in the first place towards me. All because you had it stuck in your thick pan that it was better one way than another." His eyes were tinged with tears when he looked back. "So yeah, I could have pressed. But would it have been my name you screamed when you released? Would I have been the one with you in your head? It's bad enough my inexperienced ass has to come after the _fucking_ _Empress_ when it comes to pailing; why should I give her any more of _my_ mate than I already have to?"

It took a minute for Sollux to decide whether he wanted to be flattered that his mate had been willing to give him the time he obviously had needed to be comfortable with matespritship again, pity the fool for thinking he had to live up to someone else's standards, or annoyed that this was the first time ehwas hearing these concerns. He found that the answer was actually none of the above. All he wanted was for those shiny eyes to glow again.

"Okay, first, you know feelings and I get along as well as water and oil. We have a mutual hate agreement that needs to get renewed every so often because I'm a moron who can't deal with them. Secondly, everything that just happened was a first for me, too. FF and I never pailed." He rolled his eyes at the incredulous look he was given. "Oh come on, KK. Just because I was old enough on the meteor to know I had a bulge and wanted to do something with it doesn't mean she was. Yeah, she got me off a couple times, but she never smelled like she was really into it, and certainly never came close to making me want like you do in return. And three, the only thing you have to share with her is the fact that you both fell for the Captor Charm." He sighed and pulled Karkat close, nuzzling against his temple and rubbing their horns together."I skipped right past announcement and courting to claim you as a matesprit. Doesn't that say anything about how serious I am about you?"

"Yeah, it does." Karkat relaxed, nuzzling back. "Just remember it's a two way street, you pitiful wreck."

"If I ever forget, I'm sure you'll remind me," Sollux grinned.

"Damn straight I will." There was another kiss, back to the slow, shyly sweet type they had started with. "I'll tell you as often as you need to hear it," he murmured, pressing close. Sollux gathered his mate in his arms, returning everything that was being given. The hesitation was gone, as was the urgency fueled by uncertainty. All that was left was mutual pity and trust.

None of them had really understood what winning The Game meant. There had never been a happy ending waiting for any of them; they'd only been given what they needed in order to make this new place a home. And while the original ordeal was well and truly over, that didn't mean anything had stopped. They were alive. They were free to live, to make their own places and choices and consequences. To find their own happy ending instead of one that had been encoded for them en masse. And when Karkat slid over the top of him, once more hot and wanting, Sollux could honestly say he was looking forward to the experience.

* * *

The End.

There is a bonus!scene that occurs after this, which can be found on my tumblr page (grimreaperchibi-tumblr-com). It's there because it doesn't belong here.


End file.
